How Associative Material Characteristics Create Textile Reflection

Product design, and especially relevant for this study textiles design, is concerned with designing not only the product itself, but just as much the material, which forms the product. It is further highly relevant that designers relate their materials and product to an existing context and environment that
corresponds to meanings and experiences.
For design education it is therefore essential to discuss the diversity of material attributes that has to be considered in textile design, but also the creative process of actually designing the materials in order to obtain the desired properties and meanings. As educators of future designers we are concerned
with teaching students, how to develop and use materials for ‘future design’ in a way that embrace multiple properties, including aesthetic, technical, functional and sustainable concerns. In this study we are specifically concerned with associative meanings when it comes to design of new materials and how they affect the final materials. Here students were told to translate and interpret
abstract key phrases into textile materials or compositions. The educational aims of the assignment were primarily to encourage the students to explore materials and to reflect on, how personal associations can be embodied in [textile] materials.
The discussion and results of the study stressed the coherence and differences of textile techniques used to express the given keywords and how the assignment has influenced the students’ material practice.

How Associative Material Characteristics Create Textile Reflection (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281030536_How_Associative_Material_Characteristics_Create_Textile_Reflection [accessed Dec 21, 2015].