scholarly journals Italianità and internationalism: Production, design and mediation at Alessi, 1976–96

Modern Italy ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Lees-Maffei

SummaryThis article considers the Italian household product design company Alessi as quintessentially Italian and international. The interplay of mass-production and craft techniques at Alessi, an extended design process and the presentation of the family in company publicity exemplify the ambiguities identified within Italian design. The extent to which Alessi typifies Italian post-war design is questioned with reference to the company's international design team and the marketing of its products to foreign consumers as manifestations of italianità. The findings are based on primary research in Milan and the Alessi factory, including a series of interviews with designers, retailers, curators and media workers, combined with secondary material centred upon design history.

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Renate Motschnig ◽  
Dominik Hagelkruys

Human-Centered Design focuses on the analysis, specification and involvement of a product's end users as driving elements in the design process. The primary research objective of the case-study presented in this paper is to illustrate that it is essential to include users with special needs into all major steps of designing a web-portal that provides services to these special users. But how can this be accomplished in the case of users with special cognitive and affective needs? Would the “classical” Human-Centered Design Process (HCD) be sufficient or would it need to be adapted and complemented with special procedures and tools? In this paper the design team shares the strategies they adopted and the experiences they gained by including users with dyslexia in the design of the LITERACY Web-Portal. Besides providing insight into the special effort and steps needed to adapt HCD for users with special needs, the paper encourages application designers to include end-users even though - or particularly because - they have needs that are special and critical for the adoption of the product.


1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-17
Author(s):  
Daniel Formosa

An insufficient flow of information leads to inadequately designed products. There are several reasons why designers do not receive good information. Designers have no training in research, and rarely conduct their own research studies. They therefore must rely on research performed by persons in other fields. This information, in turn, is poorly adaptable to the designer’s needs. An information gap exists. Contributing to the problem are project schedules and budgets that unreasonably limit the amount of time that can be invested in the gathering and assimilation of information. On the horizon is the utilization of multi-disciplinary research teams that will apply their efforts to design. In the meantime, information gathering is a tedious process that needs to be performed as expediently and as painlessly as possible. A librarian with an understanding of the design process can be a vital member of a product design team.


Author(s):  
Renate Motschnig ◽  
Dominik Hagelkruys

Human-Centered Design focuses on the analysis, specification and involvement of a product's end users as driving elements in the design process. The primary research objective of the case-study presented in this paper is to illustrate that it is essential to include users with special needs into all major steps of designing a web-portal that provides services to these special users. But how can this be accomplished in the case of users with special cognitive and affective needs? Would the “classical” Human-Centered Design Process (HCD) be sufficient or would it need to be adapted and complemented with special procedures and tools? In this paper the design team shares the strategies they adopted and the experiences they gained by including users with dyslexia in the design of the LITERACY Web-Portal. Besides providing insight into the special effort and steps needed to adapt HCD for users with special needs, the paper encourages application designers to include end-users even though - or particularly because - they have needs that are special and critical for the adoption of the product.


Author(s):  
Camilo POTOCNJAK-OXMAN

Stir was a crowd-voted grants platform aimed at supporting creative youth in the early stages of an entrepreneurial journey. Developed through an in-depth, collaborative design process, between 2015 and 2018 it received close to two hundred projects and distributed over fifty grants to emerging creatives and became one of the most impactful programs aimed at increasing entrepreneurial activity in Canberra, Australia. The following case study will provide an overview of the methodology and process used by the design team in conceiving and developing this platform, highlighting how the community’s interests and competencies were embedded in the project itself. The case provides insights for people leading collaborative design processes, with specific emphasis on some of the characteristics on programs targeting creative youth


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Li ◽  
Xingsheng Jiang ◽  
Jingye Li ◽  
Yadong Zhao ◽  
Xuexing Li

Background: In the whole design process of modular fuel tank, there are some unreasonable phenomena. As a result, there are some defects in the design of modular fuel tank, and the function does not meet the requirements in advance. This paper studies this problem. Objective: Through on-the-spot investigation of the factory, a mechanical design process model is designed. The model can provide reference for product design participants on product design time and design quality, and can effectively solve the problem of low product design quality caused by unreasonable product design time arrangement. Methods: After sorting out the data from the factory investigation, computer software is used to program, simulate the information input of mechanical design process, and the final reference value is got. Results: This mechanical design process model is used to guide the design and production of a new project, nearly 3 months ahead of the original project completion time. Conclusion: This mechanical design process model can effectively guide the product design process, which is of great significance to the whole mechanical design field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Hui ◽  
Yan Li ◽  
Ye Tao ◽  
Hongwei Liu

AbstractA design problem with deficient information is generally described as wicked or ill-defined. The information insufficiency leaves designers with loose settings, free environments, and a lack of strict boundaries, which provides them with more opportunities to facilitate innovation. Therefore, to capture the opportunity behind the uncertainty of a design problem, this study models an innovative design as a composite solving process, where the problem is clarified and resolved from fuzziness to satisfying solutions by interplay among design problems, knowledge, and solutions. Additionally, a triple-helix structured model for the innovative product design process is proposed based on the co-evolution of the problem, solution, and knowledge spaces, to provide designers with a distinct design strategy and method for innovative design. The three spaces interact and co-evolve through iterative mappings, including problem structuring, knowledge expansion, and solution generation. The mappings carry the information processing and decision-making activities of the design, and create the path to satisfying solutions. Finally, a case study of a reactor coolant flow distribution device is presented to demonstrate the practicability of this model and the method for innovative product design.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2409-2418
Author(s):  
Summer D. Jung ◽  
Erika Perttunen ◽  
Senni Kirjavainen ◽  
Tua Björklund ◽  
Sohyeong Kim

AbstractAs design research expands its horizon, there has been a recent rise in studies on nontraditional designers. Previous studies have noted the positive effect of diversity in generating ideas. Among different sources of influence, peers outside the design team have been noted for their positive impact on the design process, yet the research on this topic is still in its early stages. Using qualitative data from 40 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the American and Finnish food and beverage industries, the current study examines their interactions with other SMEs, shedding light on the influence of peers on creating new design solutions. The findings suggest that peer companies can act as a frequent and impactful source of inspiration for product design ideas. The most prevalent forms of interaction were co-creating products, sharing information, and sharing ingredients. Furthermore, the interactions were voluntary, organic, and improvisational in nature, and physical proximity or previous connections often initiated the interactions. Taken together, a great number of peer influences contributed towards creative new solutions.


Author(s):  
Marilia Riul ◽  
Ingrid Moura Wanderley ◽  
Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos

Stuart Walker is Professor of Design for Sustainability and Co-Director of the Imagination Lancaster design research Centre at Lancaster University. Focused on design for sustainability; product aesthetics and meaning; practice-based design research and product design that explores and expresses both human values and notions of spirituality. He was interviewed in his second visit to Brazil to attend the Conference and Workshop "Design and the national policy of solid waste: dialogues on sustainability," held in the Sustainability Laboratory (Lassu) at the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2013, an activity of the research project sponsored by CNPq: Product design, sustainability and national policy on solid waste, coordinated by Professor Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos. Through the suggested questions, Professor Stuart Walker built a severe critique of our social system of mass production and reminded us that values really matter to our journey.


2013 ◽  
Vol 712-715 ◽  
pp. 2888-2893
Author(s):  
Hai Qiang Liu ◽  
Ming Lv

In order to realize information sharing and interchange of complex product multidisciplinary collaborative design (MCD) design process and resources. The Process integrated system control of product multidisciplinary collaborative design was analyzed firstly in this paper, then design process of complex product for supporting multidisciplinary collaborative was introduced, a detailed description is given of the organization structure and modeling process of MCD-oriented Integration of Product Design Meta-model ; and concrete implement process of process integrated system control method was introduced to effectively realize information sharing and interchange between product design process and resources.


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