Design from improvisation: Collage as an ideation approach for product design

Abstract

Product design is a profession that requires extraordinary creativity and imagination. Although product designers devote their time to creating various products to fulfil people’s needs, design fixation can still be an issue that they need to overcome during the design process. The aim of this thesis is to investigate one possible solution to the frequent problem of design fixation. The research examines the causes of design fixation, the ways how industrial designers search for inspiration, as well as the sources of creativity generation. Tying up various theoretical and empirical strands, this thesis proposes an alternative product design ideation approach－Object Sketch－as a potential solution to the problem of design fixation. It is an ideation approach for stimulating design inspiration through the practice of collaging existing objects. To test the probability of Object Sketch, this thesis conducts a pilot workshop with a Taiwanese design agency to understand professional product designers’ opin-ions regarding the approach. Furthermore, a series of Object Sketches carried out by the author is documented and analysed to enrich the research materials and refine the execution process. In order to introduce this new ideation approach to designers unfamiliar with it, an Object Sketch Instruction Book is designed for their use. The result of this study demonstrates an alternative way of ideation that allows product designers to think and brainstorm from an innovative yet playful perspective.