Inventomania



DESIGNING WITH MATERIALS

A Hands-On Guide to Inventive Product Design

Inna Alesina and Ellen Lupton

196 pages; 375 illustrations, provided digitally

Design is about people. Design is about thinking, inventing, solving problems, collaborating, being curious, asking questions, and challenging everything. Design is about communicating with forms, structures, and materials. It is not about pretty shapes and cool gadgets. Designing with Materials is a book for design students and professionals who want to create fresh, original designs for functional objects. The book is about being resourceful, ethical, compassionate, and human. It will show you how to use everyday materials to jumpstart the design process, and how to follow through a project from idea to prototype to finished product. This hands-on, action-oriented guide to design thinking addresses the “how” and “why” of product design In a down-to-earth, accessible manner. We explore the values that are driving design innovation in today’s world, and we provide powerful tools for creative problem-solving.

The book is conceived as a stand-alone volume that is coordinated with the game Inventomania: Inventing with Everyday Objects. Designed for children and adults age eight and up, the game is also a great brainstorming tool for designers and design students.

OVERVIEW

GETTING STARTED 24 pages (including front matter)

The book opens with a real-life scenario in which a group of design students are assigned to solve a problem: Make a person comfortable while seated. (Note that the problem doesn’t say “Design a chair,” but rather addresses a basic human situation.) Each student is given a different material to use (including cardboard, felt, paper pulp, bamboo, metal, mesh, molded foam, and fabric), and each of these materials sets a student on a unique path of discovery. And thus we establish the philosophy of this book: discover the hidden intelligence of materials, and invent new forms around basic human functions.

LOOK, OBSERVE, LISTEN 24 pages

Get in the mood for creative problem-solving by discovering design concepts and design problems all around you. This chapter provides useful tips on how to turn your observations of everyday life into useful and original ideas.

THINK WITH MATERIALS 100 pages

Explore flat, structural, and moldable materials and common items for use in prototyping. Through student exercises and inspiring examples from the world of contemporary product design, learn how to use materials as tools for thinking and making. You can test nearly any problem against each category of material, yielding different structures and results. Examine materials from several points of view, including traditional uses, experimental uses, techniques and directions for prototyping with everyday objects, and environmental implications. The text is supported with step-by-step instructions, photographs of products and prototypes, and a variety of references and resources.

KNOW YOUR VALUES 24 pages

While developing prototypes in an open-ended way, designers also think about how a project addresses social, environmental, emotional, and aesthetic needs. Design is takes shape around such values as simplicity, multi-functionality, universal access, humor, ecology, and other essential values in contemporary design.

MAKE IT REAL 24 pages

Learn how to move from prototype to finished product by creating effective models and presentations, how to source materials, how to work with manufacturers, and how to protect intellectual property.

ADDRESSING OUR AUDIENCE

Designing with Materials will serve as a text in college-level product design courses. It is also an inspirational book that any working designer would enjoy studying and referencing. Loaded with information and addressed to the reader in a direct, inviting way, Designing with Materials has been planned with the reader’s interests and needs in mind. The book is relevant to contemporary practice and design issues, but it is not precious, preachy, or overly theoretical. Rather than promote a particular style of design, it presents a powerful and practical mode of design thinking that can be applied to countless situations. In contrast with PAPress’s Elements of Design, which takes a more formal view of object design, this book celebrates the rich variety of thought processes and structural concepts that arise from concrete, living design problems and the materials brought together to solve them. The book is also distinct from other materials-oriented guides for industrial designers, such as Michael Ashby’s and Kara Johnson’s Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection, which is more technical handbook rather than an inspirational thinking tool.

EXPANDED OUTLINE

LOOK, OBSERVE, LISTEN

Looking for problems

The ability to listen, observe and emphasize is necessary for every designer. Be a fly on the wall, leave no stone unturned, and find the “why” behind the “why.”

How to brainstorm

Asking the right questions could mean solving the right problem.

Design solutions from nature

Swim fins, snail, fruits and flowers, honeycomb, and burrs are among the infinite useful structures to be found in nature.

Be the frustrated user

Many great products are designed out of necessity: 180s ear warmers, tissue dispenser,

glow-in-the-dark rug, sippy cup.

Be inspired by the junk you collect

Resourceful designers and students share their tips.

THINK WITH MATERIALS

1. Flat materials and flexible materials

Paper

Tyvec

Leather

Fabric knit/stretch

Mesh

Fabric woven

Cardboard

Sheet plastic

Sheet metal

Webbing

Prototype materials:

Paper

Plastic bag

Aluminum foil

Soda can

T-shirt

Cereal box

Soda bottle

Rubber balloon

Rubber band

Canvas/cloth

2. Structural materials

Wire

Spring wire

Rod metal

Rod wood

Composite rod (tent poles)

Corrugated structure

Tube/bamboo/pipe

Tension structure

Honeycomb

Composite/braided structure

Prototype materials:

Toilet paper roll

Pencil/round rod

Flat sticks

Wire tie

Paper clip

Drinking straw

Toothpick

Corrugated cardboard

CD

Fiberglass

3. Moldable materials

Felt

Paper pulp

Molded foam

Air (inflatable)

Molded plastic

Glass

Clay

Rubber

Prototype materials:

Inflated balloon

Bubble gum

Dirt, clay, play dough

Plaster

Blue foam/Styrofoam

Sand, buckwheat hulls, and other fillers

Foam rubber

Found objects

4. Fasteners and fastening techniques

Zipper

Magnet

Sewing/stitching

Screw

Velcro

Snap

Pressure fit

Fuse/weld

Glue/laminate

Interlock

KNOW YOUR VALUES

Multi-functionality

Is it a good idea to combine many features? Good examples and bad examples: pencil/eraser, carpet chair, backpack cooler, laptop bag/support cushion, etc.

Collapsible

Twist/fold structures, beach chairs, tents, desk partition, accordion structures, etc.

Senses

Good design works for all senses: grass light, kick chair, inflate light, etc.

Simplicity

Post it notes, magnetic poetry, crayons and markers, and more.

Universal design

Who is going to use your invention? Test your idea with different people.

Jar opener, bath seat, doorknob, household objects, etc.

Humor

Kikkerland and other novelty design companies, pincushion, brick bag, trivet, glass with a hole, etc.

Ecology

Recycle/reuse, Eco diaper, “Fill it” furniture system made of plastic bags, etc.

MAKE IT REAL

Refine

Object design is communicating with shapes and colors. You just invented a useful thing. Will other people know how to use it by just looking at it?

Communicate

Designers communicate their designs to people who will be making them, selling them, and using them.

Present

Mount, display, post on-line, photograph, sketch, film, write.

Produce

Designers make things that need to be mass-produced. Dialogue with manufacturers needs to start early in the process. The more you know about the processes, the better designer you will be.

Distribute

How it will be sold? Imagine it on the store shelf. How to explain to others how it works and what benefits are?

Protect your property

Introduction to NDA, patent law, and common sense; resources and bullet points on IP.

THE AUTHORS

Inna Alesina



Inna Alesina is the winner of many design awards including the Macef RE-think & RE-cycle Designboom competition. She is the principal of Alesina Design Inc., a Maryland-based product design and development studio. Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, she studied industrial design at the Ukrainian Institute of Industrial Arts and continued her studies at Parsons School of Design in New York. She has participated in numerous international events, including Designboom ICFF Mart (May 2005). Her work is included in Material Connexion and other design collections, and it has been published in ID Magazine, The New York Times, Abitare, and Dish: International Design for the Home. With an emphasis on universal design, new materials, and environmental concerns, her projects range from furniture and consumer products to performance wear. She teaches in Towson University’s ID department and in Maryland Institute College of Art’s Environmental Design program.

Ellen Lupton



Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. Recent books include D.I.Y: Design It Yourself (2006) and Thinking with Type (2004). She is director of the MFA program in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, she has organized numerous exhibitions, including the National Design Triennial series (2000, 2003, and 2006), Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500–2005 (2006), Solos: New Design from Israel (2006), Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002), Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1999), Mixing Messages (1996), and Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993). Books in the works include D.I.Y. Kids (with Julia Lupton), D.I.Y. Project Deck (with Alissa Faden), and Graphic Design: Structure and Experiment (with Jennifer Cole Phillips and MICA students and faculty).

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