Role of cultural inspiration with different types in cultural product design activities

• Published in: International journal of technology and design education Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 499 - 515
• Main Authors: Luo, Shi-Jian, Dong, Ye-Nan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.09.2017; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Art education; Creativity; Cultural Awareness; Cultural Influences; Culture; Design; Education; Educational Technology; Feature extraction; Historic artifacts; Inspiration; Learning and Instruction; Motivation; Product design; Science Education; Statistical Analysis; Students; Teaching methods; Cultural features; Design activities; Creativity; Cultural inspiration
• ISSN: 0957-7572; 1573-1804
• DOI: 10.1007/s10798-016-9359-y

Inspiration plays an important role in the design activities and design education. This paper describes “ancient cultural artefacts” as “cultural inspiration”, consisting of two types called “cultural-pictorial inspiration” (CPI) and “cultural-textual inspiration” (CTI). This study aims to test the important role of cultural inspiration with different types in cultural product design activities. Through an exploratory experiment, design students were asked to extract cultural features from ancient cultural artefacts and generate new “culturally-oriented products”. Two experts statistically analyzed the categories and quantities of cultural features, and then evaluated the creativity (originality and practicality) of design outcomes. Results show that students who worked with CTI create more creative outcomes than students who worked with CPI. It was also found that cultural features generation affect the originality of design outcomes.