TOUCH

How Touch Research Can Aid Design

Bruce MontgomeryJune 2010

How can Touch aid the design process

• Are we in an artificial world, in danger of losing human touch and emotion.

• Have we enough personal expression ,Are we lacking something precious.

• Do designers depend too much on technology.

How Can TOUCH Relate To World Issues

• Survival.• Health and Well Being.• Communication.• Consumerism explosion, What is necessary

and valuable.• The need for solutions through Design

intelligence

How to tackle those issues

• De Stem -Put design with Science,Technology.Engineering and Math's.

• This puts Human at the centre of technology.• Emotional intelligence.• Emphasis on Human awareness.• The need for Trust, touch can assist in the

process.• Design philosophy versus product.• Identify our needs, design, then create materials.

Touch aiding quality

Technology cannotAlways replace our own sensory experiences

Touch as an expression of quality

• Patrick Jordan-brand specialist.• ‘The four pleasures are key to successful innovation.• Physiological-mind• Pysciological-body• Sociological-relationships• Ideological-your values

• Automobile industry selling cars based on the touch of doors, steering wheels and gear sticks.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxwYP1TR2Hc

Touch and Craft as a future direction

• What designers want a material to do , not what can they do with that material.

• Turn the virtual world into craft through TOUCH.• Recent Craft exhibition at the Saatchi gallery showed signs

of this.• Grooming behaviour,animals link with Humans.• Gentle stroking ,calmness aids thought process?• Pleasure and sensory feelings.• Blankets that can aid pain so can we have clothes that

enhance how we feel as well as being aesthetically pleasing.

Saatchi gallery-Craft Council exhibition

Margherita MarchioniActivia bottle lampshade

An example technologyand craft using a common touchable object

WGSN-’touch’

• WGSN had identified "sensory" (touch being an important part) as one its key macro trends for Spring 2011.

• WGSN identify three key trends per season and the others for Spring 2011 were Timelines (effectively a fusion of old and futuristic) and Fair & Square (authenticity).

Touch ,Technology and Craft

Touch new fibers

• Designers generally look to Materials and textiles. So why not take the process one stage earlier and start influencing the fibers.

• These can be woven or non woven.• It used to be about coating and finish, now its

about fibers and new yarns.• Then use these materials to create new products such as Molded fabrics.• Touch textile technology will shape the future.

Yarns and fibers

Margarita Marchioni

Sculpture made of yarns fibers and embroidered beads

Touch Aiding Design

• Can clothes talk?• Senses to the body- drape.• Touch is a source of new knowledge, it identifies the

pleasure system and can stimulate emotional well being. • If we like the TOUCH of a product ,it is picked up by our

sensory skin receptors and we think of the product in a positive manner.

Touch aiding design

Alexander McQueen

Future Projects

• I TOUCH Project.• Have a world ‘Touch Day’• Touch Gourmet.• Touch and feel, what do you remember?• Research –key words. Precious, smell, texture,

personal, sensory, challenging, curiosity and fibers.

• Create a database from Touch absorbed information.