Thinking through the Adjectives in the Early Phases of Design Process: The Case of Travel Suitcase Design Project

ABSTRACT The future designers are expected to be equipped with the skills to be dreamers or storytellers who understand and express tangible as well as intangible values. In this study, the junior year industrial design students were asked to use the adjectives in the early phases of design process in a design education project about suitcase design for framing their design problems. Techniques enabling the use of adjectives for storytelling have been employed in a systematic and sequential manner as a method involving the brand analysis as product-oriented, persona as user-oriented and scenario building as an action-oriented expression technique. Five adjectives determined by the tutors were presented to the students of which they chose one. In the brand analysis, the attributes of the various characteristics of the brand in relation to the adjectives were examined, and the adjectives were diversified into related other concepts. In persona, while creating a fictional character, the adjectives determined and expressed the users’ lifestyle characteristics and in scenario building a travel story. The storytelling techniques that adjectives are employed as a part of design thinking is observed to have the potential to contribute to them to understand and express tangible and intangible values of a product.