In the Making: The role of sketches in the design process

Project Details

Description

When does form emerge in a design process? Or where? And how does form appear? Studying a work of design, we can hypothesise; we can talk to designers, analyse their drawings and models, compare and contrast with the final design to identify origins and chronology of form choices and decisions retrospectively. However, the interest of this project lies before the final design and purposely, the focus is on the actions and interactions within the design process, considering Bruce Archer’s witting reference to design as the medium of doing and making, i.e. a prospective perspective.
We find the earliest traces of form in the designer sketch. The sketch can itself take on many forms: a napkin doodle, an elaborate drawing, a simple diagram, a mockup model, etc. This project considers primarily freehand drawing and diagramming on paper.

Analytically, sketches are mostly treated as artefacts, as documents of a process from idea to solution. For the designer, however, the sketch is the process; it is doing and making. Thus, sketching is regarded as integral to the design process, and the relationship between designer and sketch can be described as a transformative exchange in which the designer and the sketch interact.

Over the past four decades, the interactions between designer and sketch have been subjected to numerous empirical and experimental studies. The focus has been on the individual designer. However, the transformative exchange often involves more than one designer and materialises in a collaborative setting.
The collaborative aspect of designing has become a prominent focus in the contemporary design discourse. Expressions such as participatory design, co-creation and co-design are frequently used in the design terminology of researchers as well as practitioners, not to mention organisations with commercial interests in innovation and product development. This reflects a notable shift of attention in design research as well as in design practice from product and manufacturing to user and experience. Moreover, it signifies an increasing interest in design processes; the interactions within these processes, their settings, tools, and methodologies.
Collaborative creation, or co-creation, can broadly be defined as any act of collective creativity, meaning at least two people interact and share a creative process. Accordingly, collaborative design or co-design can be described as collective creativity applied to the design process. Thus, co-design is a creative process in which skill, knowledge, and experience can be shared to generate ideas and produce novel solutions. Such processes can involve different kinds of skilled practitioners, including users. These types of collaborations have received much attention in recent design studies and in the literature. However, little attention has been paid to co-design processes involving collaboration between trained designers. 
Employing empirical and experimental studies of co-design processes, the project introduces the notion of collaborative sketching or co-sketching. Co-sketching can be seen as a component of co-design and implies two or more designers collaborating and sharing sketches, including drawing on the same sketch or even onto each other’s sketches.
The project inquires specifically into the interactional role of sketches in a collaborative design process and asks: What happens in a co-sketching process? How do designers interact with sketches? Which sketches affect ideation and creativity – and why?
Looking for the emergence of form in a design process, it appears that some sketches are critical; they may possess certain qualities in terms of e.g. aesthetics, communication or complexity. We require more knowledge about these qualities and how to identify them. By studying co-sketching we gain knowledge about the ways designers communicate and interact through sketching, which can contribute to a better understanding of designer skills, and specifically the significance of sketches in the design process. This is of importance not only to designers, but also to companies and researchers who initiate and facilitate co-design processes involving users and/or other non-designers. Potentially, recognition and strategic use of designer skills can promote interaction between participants in design processes to improve ideation, creativity ­– and the emergence of form.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date01/02/200718/05/2009

Funding

    Keywords

    • Design process
    • Design methodology
    • Design thinking
    • Sketches
    • Sketching
    • Collaborative processes