1 The tacit-turn: textile design in design research Elaine Igoe [email protected]Royal College of Art, Department of Textiles, Kensington Gore, London SW7 23U and University of Portsmouth, School of Art, Design and Media, Winston Churchill Avenue, Portsmouth PO1 2DJ Summary of contribution: This paper introduces some of the key topics of my PhD thesis, supervised at the Royal College of Art in the department of textiles, which seeks to conceptualise textiles to elucidate design thinking in the field. This paper aims to situate the textile design discipline into the broader remit of design research, identifying specific contexts for textile design research. Questions about the nature of design began to emerge in the late 1950s as a result of research into creativity, decision-making and management as well as advances in computer technology and artificial intelligence for problem solving. The academic discipline of ‘Design Research’ developed as it became accepted that design involved a very specific and distinctive type of knowledge. Bruce Archer was a leading exponent of this view and was fundamental in the inception of the Design Studies Journal and academic design research in general. In the debut issue published in July 1979, Archer presents a paper entitled ‘Design as Discipline’ which prompts these questions from the editor, Sydney Gregory: “Can design be a discipline in its own right? If so, what are its distinguishing features? (What are the kinds of features that distinguish any discipline?) To what questions should the discipline address itself — in both research and teaching? What methodology does it use? What results — what applications — should it be trying to achieve?” (Archer 1979) Over the decades, these questions have been studied from the perspective of different sectors of design, most prominently in architecture, industrial design and engineering, the results of which have formed the basis of design research knowledge and still lead the academic discourse in this area. ‘Design Studies’ remains one of the leading journals on design thinking and process but is heavily biased towards industrial and engineering design, as is the more recent ‘The Design Journal’ published since 1998. Nigel Cross has been a key research figure in the area of design thinking and his 2007 book ‘Designerly Ways of Knowing’ is collated as a summary of decades of his research. The book includes a chapter entitled ‘Studies of Outstanding Designers’ (Cross 2007:85), the three expert designers he studies approach design from an industrial or engineering perspective. Although Cross mentions that these designers are from different disciplines he does not acknowledge the similarities between those particular areas of design. Equally he does not explicitly recognise the variety of experience that may have been garnered from studying, for example, a leading ceramic designer, fashion designer or textile designer.
Transcript
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The tacit-turn: textile design in design research
Elaine [email protected] College of Art, Department of Textiles, Kensington Gore, London SW7 23Uand University of Portsmouth, School of Art, Design and Media, Winston Churchill Avenue,Portsmouth PO1 2DJ
Summary of contribution: This paper introduces some of the key topics of my PhD thesis,supervised at the Royal College of Art in the department of textiles, which seeks toconceptualise textiles to elucidate design thinking in the field. This paper aims to situate thetextile design discipline into the broader remit of design research, identifying specific contextsfor textile design research.
Questions about the nature of design began to emerge in the late 1950s as a result of
research into creativity, decision-making and management as well as advances in computer
technology and artificial intelligence for problem solving. The academic discipline of ‘Design
Research’ developed as it became accepted that design involved a very specific and
distinctive type of knowledge. Bruce Archer was a leading exponent of this view and was
fundamental in the inception of the Design Studies Journal and academic design research in
general. In the debut issue published in July 1979, Archer presents a paper entitled ‘Design
as Discipline’ which prompts these questions from the editor, Sydney Gregory:
“Can design be a discipline in its own right? If so, what are its distinguishing features? (What
are the kinds of features that distinguish any discipline?) To what questions should the
discipline address itself — in both research and teaching? What methodology does it use?
What results — what applications — should it be trying to achieve?” (Archer 1979)
Over the decades, these questions have been studied from the perspective of different
sectors of design, most prominently in architecture, industrial design and engineering, the
results of which have formed the basis of design research knowledge and still lead the
academic discourse in this area. ‘Design Studies’ remains one of the leading journals on
design thinking and process but is heavily biased towards industrial and engineering design,
as is the more recent ‘The Design Journal’ published since 1998. Nigel Cross has been a key
research figure in the area of design thinking and his 2007 book ‘Designerly Ways of
Knowing’ is collated as a summary of decades of his research. The book includes a chapter
entitled ‘Studies of Outstanding Designers’ (Cross 2007:85), the three expert designers he
studies approach design from an industrial or engineering perspective. Although Cross
mentions that these designers are from different disciplines he does not acknowledge the
similarities between those particular areas of design. Equally he does not explicitly recognise
the variety of experience that may have been garnered from studying, for example, a leading
ceramic designer, fashion designer or textile designer.
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In relation to textile design, the context for disseminating research in the field is less
developed. ‘Textile; The Journal of Cloth and Culture’ published since 2003 focuses on issues
of materiality, and cultural and historical studies and therefore is not well placed to kindle the
discourse on textiles as a design discipline. The paucity of academic writing concerned with
the idiosyncrasies of the textile design discipline marks it out as a taciturn in comparison to
those disciplines of design that have been instrumental in the emergence of design research
over the past five decades.
Peter Dormer (Dormer 1994:15) uses the word ‘taciturn’ as he describes the doer and maker
who cannot adequately articulate their knowledge. Anni Albers (Albers 1944) states that the
inability to give words to the experience of making and designing is not symptomatic of a lack
of intelligence but an indication of an intelligence that expresses itself via alternative means; a
type of internal intelligence that can be described as awareness, intuition or tacit knowledge.
Albers values the internality of knowledge and argues that its’ artistic or designerly outcomes
provide us with a means of verifying this knowledge. Dormer agrees and notes that this
practical (tacit) knowledge is difficult to articulate but can be demonstrated and that it is
possible for it to be judged. He warns of the dangers of reliance on tacit knowledge and the
importance of questioning it. To question the tacit, requires the ability to begin to objectify,
articulate and challenge assumptions.
As the principles of design research are so rooted within specific design disciplines from
which it was developed, can we presume that they are wholly applicable to textile design
research? I will use the questions posed by Gregory in 1979 to begin an enquiry into the
notion of textile design as a sub-discipline of design with specific methodologies, tacit
knowledge and modes of behaviour. In this brief paper, I hope to explore some of the
inadequacies of our epistemological understanding of textile design, and identify opportunities
for a more integrated relationship between textile design and design research.
As Gregory ponders on how it might be possible to define a ‘discipline’ let us begin here too.
Seminal author on tacit knowledge, Michael Polanyi (1958) provides a religious analogy that
may help to explain and describe the collective mindset that drives individuals who call
themselves ‘designers’. He uses Christianity as an example of “…a heuristic vision which is
accepted for the sake of its unresolvable tension. It is like an obsession with a problem
known to be insoluble, which yet, unswervingly, the heuristic commands; ‘Look at the
unknown!’ Christianity sedulously fosters, and in a sense permanently satisfies, man’s craving
for mental dissatisfaction by offering him the comfort of a crucified God.” (Polanyi 1958:212)
In this analogy we can compare the tacitly experienced and communicated nature of religion
with its collective vision of an all-encompassing and compelling unsolvable problem, to
design. To profess to design also requires a shared view and an experience of a tension and
a permanent dissatisfaction; one that considers that the world requires continual
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transformation through the creation of new objects. When judged in this way, design could be
seen as a ‘broad church’, structured through sub-disciplines or denominations that deliver
teachings, which are largely similar but yet with some significant deviations.
A ‘discipline’ requires disciples; individuals who feel drawn to a particular set of teachings,
tacitly learn and adopt the rules and rituals associated with the discipline allowing them to
guide their thoughts and behaviours. Disciples follow and embrace the teachings, which may
be explicit and written down or implicitly communicated. They will take comfort in knowing
they share their fundamental beliefs, thoughts, and behaviours with others. Essentially the
disciple has a tacit relationship with the discipline, which is both internal and personal and
external in relation to other disciples across time and location. In a paper exploring the notion
of the ‘discipline’ in design, Salustri and Rogers (2008:299/7) state that, “Once we have
learned to do something in a certain way, we will tend to do that thing the same way forever,
or until a “better” way presents itself (and sometimes, not even then). In this way, we will tend
to not try other ways to do a thing because we have learned one way of doing it.”
So once indoctrinated in a discipline, it can remain with us almost indefinitely. This supports
the notion of a quasi-religious design discipline. If we do accept that the compulsion to design
as well as other activities and experiences associated with designing are universal then we
must also ask why most designers specialise within one area or sub-discipline of design?
In a recent paper referring to Kuhn’s 1962 book ‘Structure of Scientific Revolutions’, Wang
and Ilhan (2009:5) “propose a sociological distinctiveness to the design professions which, is
really their key distinguishing signature.” They oppose the notion that individual design
professions hold specific knowledge (and note that there are social, historical and market-led
reasons for this concept being maintained in academic writing) but rather that they are all
centred round the ‘creative act’. They describe a ‘sociological wrapping’ around the ‘creative
act’ and proceed in their investigation by questioning what a profession is. Wang and Ilhan
advise that in order to define a design profession one must decipher what it does “(with any
general knowledge that assists in the creative act) in a sociological process of defining itself
to the larger culture.” (Wang & Ilhan 2009:7)
The textile design discipline appears to attract a broad range of disciples. The term ‘textile
practitioner’ can at once describe students, artists, craftspeople, hobbyists and designers of
various levels of expertise, approaches and experience all with markedly different approaches
to following and embracing the ‘teachings’ of the discipline. Certain traits in objects,
behaviours or even people may be considered ‘textiley’ amongst textile practitioners, a word
that is difficult to define but easily understood within the discipline. Textile design
encompasses teachings from the broader disciplines of design, technology, art and craft,
indicating that textile design disciples have formed both a personal and collective tacit
understanding of a specific blend of knowledge. What remains to be examined is whether this
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knowledge and its associated methodologies serve as, in Wang and Ilhan’s terms, a general
knowledge contributing to a more generalised creative act or design process or whether it
may offer a new paradigm for design research. If sociological wrapping defines the public
and professional identity of a profession or discipline, how is textiles wrapped, who has
contributed to its wrapping and why so and does it need to be modified or updated?
I suggest that to begin to understand this, it is useful to consider the textile design discipline
as an entity; including textile designers, designed textile objects and the textile design
process. When seen in this way it is possible to identify certain traits that allow us to
characterise textiles. Below, I propose particular embodiments of the character of textiles. I
use the word ‘Textiles’ to denote an entity once again. I have selected feminine archetypes on
which to explore the sociological wrapping of textiles. These roles have been selected as they
draw attention to the complex and dichotomous epistemology of textiles. Textiles as an entity
may at one time subscribe to all of these archetypes.
Textiles is a mother.
It is universally fundamental in its ability to enable other objects to come into existence. It is a
fertile ground that invites (and requires) partners to participate in realising new creations, a
site of origination. Textiles implicitly relates, adapts, communicates and gives continuously
and changeably on a physical level.
Textiles is a geisha.
It must use all its performative, decorative and seductive characteristics in order to
communicate its exquisiteness to patrons. Patrons are courted ritually and continuously and
once a relationship has been organised, the patron receives a particular level of control over
the behaviour of Textiles, who responds by expressing the potential of sensory pleasure.
Textiles communicates a submissive character, which belies the reverence given to its highly
accomplished and wide-ranging skills. This relationship is difficult for those from particular
social cultures to understand properly, however the indigenous social perspective provides
alternative readings of the situation.
Textiles is a spinster.
Textiles is considered simple, naïve and uncomplicated not forthcoming or interested in
articulating what makes it special or unique. Its muteness has impeded its ability to forge
relationships. Textiles can be intelligent and interesting but may be overlooked by those
looking, merely, for beauty. In response Textiles sometimes opts out, preferring to remain
academic, free to pursue its own interests and out of the reach of potential suitors.
These labels carry significant meaning and can be more deeply explored not least from a
feminist perspective. They are gendered because textiles as a designed object, a way of
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thinking and a way of being, exhibits traits that are considered characteristically feminine.
The description of each archetype explains the centrality of relationality to textiles. Designed
textile objects are innately highly relational, a quality of which textile designers are aware. At
the same time, textile designers must regularly court manufacturers and other types of
designers who are looking for textiles to help them realise their own design ideas. Most
commonly, textile designs need to be bought and given an application before they can
interact with the larger society. To do this textile designers often produce a wide range of
designs made to address and satisfy the market requirements as far as possible. A large
proportion of perfectly acceptable textile designs will never be sold or put into production.
There is of course a contingent of the most innovative textile designers who do not wish to
participate in this courtship of commerce. They are encouraged by and operating within
academic institutions. Some, but few, are successful in achieving both academic and
commercial acclaim.
The descriptions also allude to the pleasure-giving qualities of textiles, which may be subtle
and tactile or decorative and sensorial. They also point to the unspoken nature of textile
design, it may be or taken for granted, disregarded or unrecognised for their input in the
design process and the resulting designed object. This muteness has resulted in textiles
accepting a considerably less active role in the pertinent debates of design research today.
If these labels help us to understand how textiles, as a design discipline and designed object,
presents itself in the larger culture, they can also be used to uncover design thinking and
methodologies for textile design. Within my continued research, I seek to explore how a this
sociological understanding of textiles may help in articulating the form of the ‘creative act’
(Wang & Ilhan 2009) for textiles.
Returning to the quotation from Gregory, he goes on to ask what kinds of questions a
discipline should address itself it to, and so let us apply his query to textiles. Their primary
roles as designed objects are to provide shelter and modesty but also to deliver a tactile and
visual experience. Of course textiles also have functions connected with their roles, for
example as filters, carrying devices or to respond to heat or light. In this paper, I want to
focus on textiles’ role as agent of tactile and visual experience, specifically its decorative
characteristics. David Brett provides an explanation of decoration and identifies and
legitimises it as transformative, alluding to its visual and tactile qualities and its role in sensory
perception and social function (Brett 2005). Brett uses examples from textile design to help
form his definition of ‘the decorative’:
“ I begin to see what decoration is for. It completes. It brings buildings, objects and artefacts
to completion in and for perception, by making them easier to see, more finished, more easily
focussed upon. It completes in and for social use by making them into signs and symbols for
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our endeavours and beliefs. It completes in and for pleasure by inviting the eye to dwell and
the hand to caress. It completes in and for thought by making objects memorable.
Decoration, by completing our world, completes those who live in it….”
Brett (2005:264)
He continuously talks of the role of decoration for providing pleasure, but textiles can be
earnestly functional and elaborately decorative at the same time, yet the multifarious qualities
of textiles can often be unseen, forgotten or unspoken:
“…in many or most cases we have got so used to this ornament that we look upon it as if had
grown of itself, and note it of no more than mosses on the dry sticks with which we light our
fires.” (Morris 1877)
Jane Graves extends Brett and Morris’s inclusion of textiles as a form/mode of decoration by
closely associating textiles with pattern. She gives a psychoanalytical account of pattern
(Schoeser & Boydell 2002:45) in which she describes how decoration is converted through
repetition into pattern. She suggests that textile is pattern, whether or not pattern is woven in
as a design, as the natural texture resultant from weaving or knitting or as printed onto a
textile surface. This approach to ‘disentangling textiles’ (Schoeser & Boydell 2002) allows a
deeper conceptualisation of not only the outcomes of textile design as designed objects but
also the intentions, behaviours and thinking of the textile designer. Similarly to Brett and
Morris, she correlates textiles (pattern as textiles) with pleasure and describes how, in
particular the printed textile designer, is free to play with the powerful qualities of pattern and
uses Freudian concepts to describe how the unconscious is drawn to pattern for it’s addictive
and disorientating qualities. So, textiles as designed decorative objects can be seen as
sometimes imperceptible yet tacitly addictive, emotive and pleasurable but how are these
‘meta-functions’ of textiles understood within the discipline and how does it affect the issues
to which textiles, as a design discipline, addresses itself? The nature of the ill-defined design
problems that textile designers address have not yet been adequately explored or critiqued
and subsequently there are no clear debates that could begin to offer answers.
Archer and Gregory (1979) also prompt an exploration of the methodology of design. Tacit
knowledge is embodied in the designed outcomes of textile design and exhibited in the textile
designer’s approach to design thinking and the behaviours and activities they undertake
within their design process. Can a textiles orientated approach to design be correlated with a
more concrete methodology within the broader remit of design research?
Design research is currently seen to encompass four main areas. These are outlined by
Sanders and Stappers (2008) in the diagram below as; critical design, participatory design,
user-centred design and design and emotion.
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(Sanders & Stappers 2008)
Further research into textile design from a design research and philosophy of design
approach will allow for specific sites in the topography to emerge as suitable for textiles. For
example, the work of Anne-Louise Bang, based at Kolding School of Design in Denmark is
exploring user-centred design in woven textiles and researchers in the Textiles Environment
Design (TED) group at Chelsea College of Art & Design, UK are using participatory design
methods to create more sustainable textile and fashion products.
‘Design and emotion’ is represented as the smallest field within this ‘topography of design
research’ (Sanders 2006). It has been charted but is yet unmapped; it does not feature any
distinctive research methods, tools or smaller fields of research within it. However it is this
centrally located field that seems to lend itself most to the characteristics of the entity of the
textiles discipline. Seeing ‘design and emotion’ through textiles could also allow for a better
understanding and more overlaps with the other fields of design research. Currently, the
overlap with ‘user-centred design’ describes the role of industrial design (including interaction
design and product design) within ‘design and emotion’ as promoted by The Design and
Emotion Society. ‘Design and emotion’ is placed almost at the central axis of design thinking;
led by design, led by research, with the user as subject and / or partner. If it is agreed that
‘design and emotion’ is a field ripe for input from the textile design discipline, how might this
input reshape the field or vice versa? ‘Design and emotion’ is situated closer to design than
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research; if textiles were to adopt a more research focussed approach, what effect would this
have on the nature of the textiles discipline and how it is perceived?
In recent years there has been a phenomenal growth in innovative textile design work dealing
with sophisticatedly complex problems concerned with sensory perception, aesthetic and
haptic pleasure and social function; for example textile designers are applying their
knowledge and thinking to design for architectural, healthcare and wellbeing and automotive
applications. They are working with material scientists, engineers, chemists and industrial
designers; the innovative work of Jenny Tillotson and Rachel Wingfield serve as good
examples. These relationships are forming because each party recognises and values a
particular quality of knowledge that they wish to access in one another in order to develop
and further their practice in their field. Kavanagh (2004) and Kavanagh, Matthews & Tyrer
(2008) give several case studies that attest to this. The rapid growth of this type of
interdisciplinary work at the cutting edge of textiles is serving to highlight its particular
‘designerly ways of knowing’ (Cross 2007). The activities of these textile designers will start to
enlarge and stretch the ‘design and emotion’ methodology until more detail emerges and
overlap with the other design research fields occur, and will be where the specificities of
textile design thinking and knowledge will be found.
Whilst it may be true that within academia, textile design is turning ‘smart’ and looking
towards innovative interdisciplinarity, it is also true that this type of work has only a small
immediate impact on the majority of textile designs that consumers wear and decorate their
homes with. What links textile designers working within the commercial sector with those
more concerned with innovation is that both activities require the utilisation of a tacit
knowledge of textiles to make items aesthetic and/or haptic; abilities and knowledge which
have not been given adequate attention, value or gravitas.
Undergraduate and postgraduate textile design students are working and playing with wood,
metal, sound, animation, plastics, glass as well as fabric, thread and yarn within their textile
design process. It is during their education when textile designers most tangibly feel the
breadth of the methodology of textile design and discover the function and meta-functions of
textiles. It is only when they come into contact with industry or other fields of design do they
start to tacitly understand what distinguishes the textile discipline. And it is when they see
their designs in context or in use do they begin to acknowledge the relational, emotive and
communicative qualities of the textiles they have designed. This knowledge continues to be
implicitly communicated from designer to designer, tutor to pupil, but not explicitly articulated
out towards industry or other fields of design. They tacitly synthesise this information, and
therefore it remains inadequately critically evaluated in any explicit way useful for design
research academia. This then creates a disjuncture between a textile designer’s tacit concept
of textile design and the understanding of it outside of the discipline. Many graduates of textile
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design degrees find that what was happily accepted and even lauded as textile design within
the educational setting is inappropriate or misunderstood in industrial or commercial settings.
This disjuncture seems to be largely accepted within the textile design discipline itself,
although a handful of authors have sought to address it by examining the knowledge and
processes of textile design. Alison Shreeve opens up the conversation about tacit knowledge
in textiles in ‘Material Girls; Tacit Knowledge in Textile Crafts’ (Johnson 1998) and in doing
so emphasises the need for more extended research in this area. James Moxey in ‘The
Representation of Concepts in Textile Design’ (Moxey 2000) also studies textile design
students. His study focuses on describing the outcomes of textile design thinking, such as
moodboards and samples. These two studies focus on how the knowledge that textile
designers share is communicated or displayed in an educational setting. Rachel Studd (2002)
provides a detailed overview of the textile design process in a variety of industrial contexts as
a way of defining a model and subsequently provides some insight into textile knowledge and
thinking.
Referring back to Gregory’s questions about design as a discipline and applying them to
textiles shows that there is still some ground to gain before textiles is more broadly
understood, and not simply practised as, a form of design. One challenge to overcome when
attempting to discover the distinguishing features of the textile design sub-discipline is the
requirement to make explicit the tacit knowledge closely shared amongst the textile
‘disciples’. Gale and Kaur’s ‘The Textile Book’ (2002:190) recognises that,
“In the absence of a significant interest from the chattier academic disciplines, the task of
establishing such a discourse rests quite clearly with the textile community itself.”
In returning to both the title and structure of this paper it is evident that the entity of textiles,
including the discipline, the designed object and the designer, is traditionally taciturn.
Textiles, as a sub-discipline of design is not so much ‘sociologically wrapped’ (Wang & Ilhan
2009) as ‘sociologically swaddled’, resulting in a lack of activity in the wider discourse of
design research. This paper aims to illustrate that there are clear areas in the existing design
research discourse in which textile design, could provide a unique perspective and a new
voice amongst the historically ‘chattier disciplines’.
References
1. Albers, A (1959) Anni Albers: On Designing. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
2. Archer, B (1979) ‘Design as a Discipline; Whatever became of Design Methodology?’
in Design Studies Vol 1 No 1, IPC Business Press pp.17-20
22. Wang, D & Ilhan, A (2009) ‘Holding Creativity Together: A Sociological Theory of the
Design Professions’ in Design Issues, Vol 25 No 1; MIT Journals
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DUCK – Journal for Research in Textiles and Textile Design
Call for contributions: ‘What is textile design research?’
Submitted: 22nd January 2010
Title of contribution:
Physical tools for textile creativity and invention
Elisabeth Heimdal and Torben Lenau
Summary:
Two textile research projects (one completed and one ongoing) are described, where physical inspirational tools are developed and tested with the aim of stimulating textile creativity and invention, i.e. the use of textile materials in new kinds of products, thus bringing textiles into new contexts. The first research project (completed) concerns how textile designers use new responsive materials and technologies, whereas the second (ongoing) concerns how architects and design engineers can use textile materials. In both projects, the developed inspirational tool is tested through workshops with the mentioned stakeholders. In these workshops, new ways of disseminating the results from research in textiles and textile design are experimented with.
The submitted contribution therefore mainly addresses the role of interdisciplinarity in textile design research as well as the impact of new materials and technologies on directions and approaches in textile design research. It presents one example of what textile design research is.
Author affiliations: Elisabeth J. Heimdal, BSc in Textile Engineering, MSc in Design & Innovation, currently PhD student at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Department of Management Engineering, Section for Innovation & Sustainability. The working title of her PhD project is Integrated Innovation with Textile Materials. E-mail address: [email protected]. Torben Lenau, PhD, Coordinator of the MSc program in Design and Innovation, Associate Professor at the Department of Management Engineering at DTU, Section for Innovation & Sustainability. E-mail address: [email protected].
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Textiles – an interdisciplinary field From we are born and until we die, we are surrounded by textiles that are directly in contact with our skin as clothing, part of the interior environment in our homes, at work, in hospitals, in cars and in public transportation, or part of the outdoor environment as geo-textiles. Most of these textiles are designed based on both aesthetic and functional requirements. The field of textiles is thus interdisciplinary in its very nature. (Heimdal, 2009) Compared to most other (stiff) materials, textiles have unique properties: they are stretchable and flexible; this partially explains the versatility of applications where they are used. Furthermore, depending on the fibres that have been used, how these have been spun, how the textile structure has been constructed, coloured, pre- or post treated, the resulting textile will be suitable for a defined application. In each of these steps choices are made that have an impact on the final textile. The inherent interdisciplinary nature of textile design is well integrated in the textile design profession. In fact, Wiberg (1996), who has studied the formation of the textile design profession in Finland, defines the following two aspects of the work of a textile designer: on the one hand the artistic-intuitive and on the other hand the scientific-technological. She further states that the intertwining of these two aspects is what characterizes the industrial textile designer’s work. Even though scientific-technological aspects are part a textile designer’s work, it can according to Berglin (2008) be stated that when textiles are designed mainly for aesthetic performance, it is considered to be textile design, whereas textiles designed mainly for technical performance are seen as belonging to the field of textile engineering. However, recent advances in material and textile technology, as well as the miniaturizing of electronics blur the traditional border between the two professions (Berglin, 2008). Furthermore, the nature of textiles is changing, as they are given new properties and functionalities, which expand their areas of application (Braddock & O’Mahony, 1998, 2005) (Lee, 2005) (McQuaid, 2005). Many responsive materials and textiles have in fact been developed since the 1970s, mainly for applications such as aerospace and the military. This has an influence on both professions, in the sense that textile designers tend to look more into technical and technological issues than earlier, and that textile engineers are given new possibilities when it comes to functionalizing textiles. The emergence of new application fields for textiles based on non-textile technologies (in addition to the textile technologies) thus also has to be included in the design process. These developments make new kinds of cooperation with experts from other fields necessary, outside the traditional textile professions. Important aspects of any product design process are the physical materials and technologies that are worked with – this statement is particularly valid for textile design, and becomes even more important as the materials that are worked with change radically. Using new materials is in fact a challenge and one of the situations when interdisciplinary cooperation can be particularly fruitful (Heimdal et al. 2009). The next section presents the results from such cooperation.
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The first project: an inspirational tool for responsive textiles In an interdisciplinary practice based research project with the aim of communicating some of the possibilities within responsive textiles to textile designers, an inspirational tool consisting of two responsive textiles was developed and tested. Collaboration partners were apart from the two authors of this text, an art historian (Hanne-Louise Johannesen), an architect (Michel Guglielmi), a textile designer (Priya Mani), a medialogist (Marija Andonovska) and an electrical technician (Asbjørn Holland Christensen). Responsive textiles A responsive textile is defined as a structure consisting of a textile material as well as eventual add-ons that as a whole is able to give a certain response to a given stimuli. The fact that the developed textiles are responsive differentiates them from traditional textiles, which do not to the same extent respond to stimuli in their environment. One could nevertheless argue a material such as wool is also a responsive material, because of its self-rinsing abilities, and its suitability for low as well as high temperatures. However, this response is much more subtle than the one provided by the responsive textiles constituting the inspirational tool. In fact, these will give responses that are very easily sensed (primarily visually) by the person interacting with them. The adjectives “smart” or “intelligent” are today commonly used to describe responsive materials and textiles of different kinds. Some use these two words almost interchangeably, whereas others draw clear distinctions between the two (Addington & Schodek, 2005). However, these adjectives are an exaggeration of the capabilities of the materials. In fact, the textiles are not able to think, in a smart or intelligent manner, they are only able to give a certain response to a given input or stimulus. That is why the adjective “responsive” is preferred. The developed inspirational tool consists of two responsive textiles, described in the following.
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Prototype 1: the textile that can move When the user (e.g. a textile designer) touches certain areas on the textile, it moves, and changes shape. Depending on which area of the textile he/she touches, different shape memory wires are activated; their contraction makes the textile move and change shape. Different shape changes can in theory be made, depending on the fabric and the way the wire is attached to it: the chosen way to do this is to cut lines in a flat fabric that are opened and pulled apart when the shape memory wire contracts, to reveal an underlying material.
Figure 1 Sequence showing how the top fabric gradually opens up.
Figure 3 The wires are contracted, revealing the underlying fabric.
Figure 4 The wires are not contracted.
Figure 2 Experimenting with the shape.
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Prototype 2: the textile that has eyes and blinks back to you Using a torch, the user lights on the textile, this responds with different light patterns, depending on which solar cells the torch is pointed (Figure 5 and 7). The solar cells work in two ways: on the one hand they transform the light from the UV torch into power and on the other hand they work as light sensors, connected to a microcontroller (a LilyPad Arduino). For each solar cell, three dynamic light patterns have been programmed.
Figure 6 Solar cells, LEDs and LilyPad connected in a soft circuit by conductive embroidery thread.
Figure 8 A lilac fabric is covering the black bottom fabric. Optical fibres cover some of the LEDs.
Figure 5 A light pattern is activated by pointing a torch on one of the solar cells.
Figure 7 Light pattern with lilac fabric.
Figure 9 Detail: a flexible solar cell and a bundle of optical fibres.
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Workshops In order to test the inspirational qualities of the responsive textiles as well as intermediary materials and to understand how they could be part of a design process, they were tested at three occasions. The term “intermediary materials” refers to functional parts of a given responsive textile. This can e.g. be a textile button, which is a part of the textile that can move, or the conductive embroidery thread, which is a part of the the textile that has eyes and blinks back to you. The inspirational tool was tested at the following three occasions.
- A weeklong workshop for architect, design and art students in Strasbourg, France (Figure 10, 11, 12 and 13).
- A workshop for third year textile design students at The Danish Design School in Copenhagen (Figure 14 and 15).
- At the international textile fair TechTextil in Frankfurt, Germany (Figure 16).
Figure 11 Workshop participants playing with the responsive textile.
Figure 13 Demonstrating an intermediary material: the soft switch.
Figure 10 Looking underneath the top layer.
Figure 12 Idea developed by architecture student: a tent with solar cells and LEDs.
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Figure 14 Workshop with textile design students.
Figure 16 Demonstrating the responsive textiles at TechTextil.
Findings The workshop with the textile design students clearly showed that the two developed responsive textiles are efficient idea triggers, when staged in a context-directed brainstorming. Together with the insights gained in Strasbourg, this workshop as well as the participation at TechTextil give a systematic image of how physical objects can be used as inspirational tools in a textile design process (see flow chart on the next page, made after Berglin, 2008). The two responsive textiles together with a range of intermediary materials constitute an inspirational tool, which can act as: - Trigger for idea generation – i.e. as a starting point for a design process. This is most efficient when there is a clearly defined use context for the developed idea. For this, both simple demonstration materials and fully developed prototypes are efficient. The latter give rise to more concentrated but realizable ideas, whereas the first gives rise to wide associations, which however seem more difficult to realize. - Solution proposal in an ongoing design process – i.e. where the problem to be solved has already been defined. For this, materials without a defined context and that have simple functionality seem most appropriate. As solution proposals, the physical objects can be given functionalities and applications that were not thought of when they were developed: the idea to use the shape memory wires to create ventilation is an example of this; it is an unexpected consequence of the chosen cut-out pattern, which was chosen for its aesthetic qualities.
Figure 15 Idea from workshop with textile designers. A shape changing curtain.
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Convergence Transformation Divergence
Textile Fabric Structure Textile Fibres and Technology
Aesthetics
Inspirational tool as solution proposal
Required Performance
Use
Function
Context
Economy
Inspirational tool as idea trigger
In addition to revealing how physical objects can be used as inspirational tools the testing of the responsive textiles also revealed the importance of the meaning designers give physical objects, i.e. the semantic meaning of the physical object. The word ‘semantic’ can be defined as the science of the meaning of words. The term ‘semantic properties’ in fact describes how we can describe the impressions objects give us in words (Lenau & Boelskifte, 2004). Figure 17 displays all the words chosen by the textile designers to describe the textile that has eyes and blinks back to you - the bigger the font, the more persons chose the word. A discussion during the workshop revealed that it was very important to them that the materials were “textile”, not just add-ons. They meant that it would be much better if the solar cells could be printed right onto the textile; instead of integrated by sewing the way it was now. This seems to indicate that the semantic meanings read from the responsive textiles were of a limiting character. That a given material or technology is new and unknown to a designer could contribute to make it interesting at first glance, but the physical object and its properties also have a meaning in addition to that – this is due to its semantic properties.
Figure 17 All the words used by the textile design students to describe the textile that has eyes and blinks back to you. The bigger the word, the more persons chose to use it. The words were chosen from a list containing 77 words.
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In order for the semantic meaning to be read by the designer, the physical existence of object is necessary: the designer needs to see the object, not just hear a description of it. In fact, a physical object possesses a number of semantic properties associated with the meaning we read from its form, colour, texture or other properties. For the technical properties there exists a well-developed and commonly accepted terminology that can be used for product search and materials selection (Ashby, 1996). This is however not the case for the semantic properties (Lenau & Boelskifte, 2004). The importance of textiles’ semantic properties learned from this project is planned to be investigated further in the ongoing research project presented hereunder. The second project: a textile design kit for architects and design engineers Why is it mainly textiles designers and textile engineers that work with textile materials? If other professions such as architects and design engineers to a larger extent used textiles it is possible that new application areas for these would emerge. The subject of the presented project is the development of a tool that facilitates the communication, exploration and development of textile potentials by architects and design engineers. The goal is to explore how persons not normally working with textile materials can become interested to do so, and how they can integrate the textile materials in their design process.
Project idea The first part of the project consists of an initial investigation of the design process and material selection process as carried out by architects and design engineers. This investigation will be based on qualitative interviews with practitioners who have an interest in and experience with the use of textile materials. Practitioners who have little or no experience with this will also be interviewed.
The results will be used for the development of a textile design kit, which makes it possible for architects and design engineers to visualize form giving possibilities offered by textile materials. Initial experiments have been made with fibre and textile composites, since such materials could be well suited as a part of the textile design kit. Fibre and textile composites (Figure 18, 19 and 20) are considered as an extension to textile materials since they represent a kind of transition material between stiff materials and soft textiles. They possess advantages from both kinds of materials; it is possible to make a double curvature surface thanks to the flexibility of the textile, but also to create bending stiffness, which normally is not a property of textile materials.
Figure 19 Mould used to manufacture double curvature fibre composites, at the Material Research Division at Risø DTU.
Figure 18 Double curvature fibre composite made of glass fibres and polypropylene.
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Figure 20 By making a sandwich structure consisting of fabrics and biopolymer film that is melted, a textile composite that can subse- quently be shaped can be made. Courtesy of the Materials Research Division at Risø DTU.
Textiles are perceived through their relationship with something, or someone else – they do not exist in a vacuum. This relationship is crucial for the way textiles are considered and used in different contexts. An important issue is thus to understand which properties and qualities that define a material as a textile for an architect or a design engineer and how it is justified. In understanding this, the semantic properties of the textiles, i.e. the meanings that are read from them are expected to be of importance. In order to look into this issue, the developed textile design kit will be staged at collaborative workshops with the mentioned stakeholders as participants.
Physical tools help innovation Ezio Manzini states that: “Every object made by man is the embodiment of what is once thinkable and possible. Something that someone was able to both think of and physically create. ” (1986, p.17) Concerning textile materials, many things are possible – in the sense that it is possible to create something physically, but is it thinkable? It is physically possible to create a textile wall (Figure 21), but is it thinkable for an architect to do that? If it is not thinkable, how can it be made thinkable? Is it thinkable to combine textiles and concrete to create outdoor furniture (Figure 22)? The goal of the textile design kit is to extend the limits of what is thinkable. In Manzini’s citation lies a pre-codified understanding of knowledge as being processed in a specific order: first we think, and then we create. Does it need to be that way? The developed textile design game should function as a kind of prototyping tool, making a physical visualization and creative experimentation with textiles possible. Creation could thus precede thinking.
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Figure 21 Textile wall developed in a joint project involving students from DTU, the School of Architecture in Copenha- gen and North Carolina State University investigating the possibilities in using textiles for new purposes within buildings.
Figure 22 Range of prototypes developed by students at DTU and the School of Architecture in Copenhagen investigating the possibilities in using textiles and flexible membranes as moulds for casting outdoor furniture.
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Vallgårda & Bendixen state that:
“There is a material side of design that we cannot address through the studies of use and social practice – the properties and potentials of materials, forms, and structures must be explored through another kind of studies. How we can operationalize material objects by engaging them in situations that give us access to their properties and enable us to explore their potential.“ (2009, p.1)
This kind of situations is at the core of the project, which in fact focuses on tools that facilitate the operationalization of textiles by architects and design engineers in order to explore new ways of using them. The collaborative workshops, as well as the development of the textile design kit, should be situations where textiles are operationalized.
Bendixen & Vallgårda describe a dilemma, and evoke both the problem and its solution. One could ask whether there is a way to perceive and understand textiles which is less good than others. Persons with a textile educational or practical background tend to perceive textiles differently than those who don’t. Furthermore, the cultural coding of what textiles are is very strong, and this can be a limiting factor when new patterns are attempted created.
Nature of textile design research Different types of textile and textile design research can seem difficult to categorize, because they cover historical, technical, scientific, commercial and aesthetic disciplines, and theory- as well as practice-based research. Kane, Matthews and Moriarty (from the DUCK website) suggest an overall distinction between 1) research into textiles and textile design, 2) research through textile designing and making or 3) research for textiles and textile design. This proves useful when reflecting upon the nature of the described research.
The two described research projects in fact provide one example of what textile design research is. In this view textile design research is research through and for textiles; through textiles because experimental design processes are carried out and studied, and for textiles because the ultimate aim is to contribute to the creation of textile artefacts which embody results from advances in textile materials research. With roots in textile engineering and engineering design, the second research project tries to bring textile materials in the hands of practitioners outside the textile professions, such as architects and design engineers. This is done by developing physical tools to facilitate visualisation and experimentation with the possibilities offered by textiles. Ultimately, this could for example result in textile materials being used to create new kinds of buildings.
Conclusion The first project shows how an inspirational tool for responsive textiles can be used as a trigger for idea generation early on in a design process. It also reveals the importance of the semantic meanings different stakeholders read in physical objects, and that this has an influence on the inspirational effect of the given physical object. The focus in the first project was mainly on textile designers.
In the second project, the stakeholders do not belong to the textile professions. One research questions is thus which effect this will have on the requirements for the textile design kit. The making and staging of the kit should facilitate the exploration of textile material characteristics on all of the following three levels:
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- Property: A property is valid no matter the context in which the material is placed; it is an intrinsic, sharp definition. For a woven upholstery fabric, it could be its area weight or its fibrous composition.
- Function: A function requires a relationship, a use context. For the same upholstery fabric, it could be its flammability or its shapeability.
- Meaning: A meaning is an interpretation of what one finds important, a symbolic expression. For the sofa covered with the mentioned fabric, it could be the associations it generates as a person looks at it.
It is however likely that the function and the meaning will be the prevailing levels as the textile materials will be seen in relation to some product or architecture concepts.
Crucial to the success of the textile design kit is that it fits into the design process of the concerned stakeholders (the architects or the design engineers). Special attention will thus be paid to understanding this design process, mainly through interviews and workshops.
Both projects encompass and explore two complementary dimensions. A process dimension related to the understanding of how an inspirational textile tool can be used in collaborative workshops in order to facilitate textile creativity and invention by different stakeholders. A product (outcome) dimension related to the understanding and exploration of the textiles themselves, their properties, functionalities, meanings. This dimension is explored in the development of the inspirational tools, but also through the concrete outcomes of the collaborative workshops.
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Lee, S. 2005, Fashioning the future – tomorrow’s wardrobe, Thames & Hudson, London.
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McQuaid, M. 2005, Extreme Textiles – designing for high performance, Thames & Hudson, London.
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Functional Styling - Exploring a textile design space Anna Persson and Linda Worbin1 The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
INTRODUCTION
As interactive materials enter the world of textile design, a new area is defined. From an
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The Benefit of Textile Design Research to the Textile Designer.
Abstract
If Textile Designers do not embark on and utilise textile research we will be left in a ‘sole less’ vacuum.
The following article aims to show the benefit of textile design research to the textile designer. Textile design is increasingly complex, and influenced by a numberof factors such as ethical textiles, sustainability, fast versus slow fashion, new digital technology and science. It is therefore necessary for increased research by the textile designer into these areas in order to understand and gain knowledge that can be incorporated into the vast textile industry so that we produce the most rel-evantcloth and fabrics that satisfies both consumer and ethical requirements.
“Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when its composed, an architectonic stage when its built and textile stage when its woven”Walter Benjamin 1892-1940[1]
Key wordsFibres, science, innovation, cross -discipline, slow fashion,research and technology.
Summary
In this article I intend to look at how textile design research is vital to the textile designer, and how the textile mills, which are investing in textile research and science, have the prospect a brighter future. I will also highlight that more support is required for eco friendly textiles and fashion if we are going to absorb the amount of clothing and textiles being produced in today’s consumer market.
The Benefit of Textile Design Research to the Textile Designer.
At times it seems that textiles and textile Designers are worlds apart in their thought processes, aims and ideals. Textile designers are experimenting with fibre engineering using textile technology and sensory functions while traditional textiles still seems content on producing woollen and worsted cloth to the same historical specification, yet it is in fact imperative that they are interactive and remain so. Historically, we only have to take ‘Worsted cloth’ to see the link between textile design and textile research. This cloth which is used by tailors to make men’s suits and sold internationally takes its name from the village of Worsted in the English county of Norfolk, which has been a centre for the production of yarns and cloth since the weavers fleeing from the hundred years war arrived in the United Kingdom from Flan-ders in 1337. Worsted cloths woven by textile designers are very much at the forefront of International menswear designer collections today designed by brands such as Burberry, Gieves and Hawkes, and Ralph Lauren. Regency Dandy and sartorial advisor to King George IV Beau Brummell set the mood by promot-ing textiles through his stylish wardrobe. His attitude inspired other more contemporary Dandy’s such as Sebastian Flyte the Oxford aesthete in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited [1945][2] and contemporary fashion writer Hamish Bowles, whose flamboyant and stylish images have helped, keep British menswear at the forefront of fashion for centuries. In the last fifty years UK Textile Industry has suffered greatly with increased competition from abroad and rising labour costs. Situated mainly in Huddersfield and the Scottish borders the Textile industry unlike clothing manufacturing [which has all gone off shore] remains intact. Al-though greatly reduced in numbers the UK mills still show in reasonable numbers at Premier vision in Paris
and other global trade cloth fairs. It’s interesting to note that the mills with the brightest future are those that have spent time working with textile designers and garment designers researching and innovating new yarns and creating new cloths. The result is that from a basic resource such as wool its possible to develop a variety of wool blends. Each has its own character and qualities but more importantly this innovation allows the designers to give the consumer a greater choice of texture, handle and performance in these new cloths. Softer finishing [Finishing is the mechanical and chemical processes used to improve the aesthetic, feel and performance of a cloth once it is woven] can change a cloth or fabric, fine super 150’s and super 180’s yarn counts have resulted in manufacturing shifts as a refined quality of make is required for these finer yarns. Interestingly prediction guru Li Edelkoort has predicted at the November 2009 International Mohair Summit in South Africa [3] a mohair trend due to its performance quality. Will the textile designers grasp the oppor-tunity?
It has repeatedly been proved that when companies have invested in textile design they reap the benefits. Fox Brothers a cloth Mill based in Somerset exports its flannel worldwide particularly to the US and Japan used textile design to create the worlds lightest fine wool and cashmere flannel weighing 220gms. They were awarded the Queens Award to Industry in 2006 for the innovation. They also played a major part in the flannel trend that hit retail this winter [Collections Fall\ Winter 2009\10.] Richard Riley Managing Director of Reid and Taylor a woolen mill based in Langholm Scotland emphasized in an interview for Twist maga-zine in April 2010[4] that “sales of super luxury fabrics [super 180’s quality] to China and Hong Kong have never been better.” The cloth mill Clissold introduced new cloths woven in England and supported this with marketing around a buy British theme. The resultwas a rise in sales after exposure at ‘Unica’ a cloth trade fair in Milan in September 2009. While Halstead’s also from the Yorkshire region has become renowned internationally for designing and producing a luxury Mohair cloth. Complementing this has been the textile print sector. The ‘Text print’ group which shows the work of British print designers at Premier Vision in Paris and Shanghai, exhibiting a high standard of print work and weave ideas bought by textile designers from all parts of the globe, particularly Asia.
The most creative and influential channel is when textile designers reflect on current textiles trends and after reflection work closely with textiles designers and cloth mills to produce yarns and cloth, which relate to the contemporary consumer and satisfy’s sustainable demands. We still need ideas, especially during a recession in order to generate business .We have an oversaturation of products on the market but do we yet understand the idea of slow fashion, slow food, and slow textiles? Can such a terminology exist, fashion is fast, con-stantly changing and moving forward with new ideas, yet in our eagerness to create the new we have also ar-rived at a point of over consumption, so its time to slow down. It is worth noting that textiles designers have played an important part in highlighting an ethical message, which textile mills have finally started to sup-port. Globally we have become more concerned about ethical trading and the working conditions of those who make our clothing, and the impact of garment production on the world we live in? It started as a trend; a niche attitude based on concerns but has grown through communication in stature so that there are now large amounts of clothing that can be bought on desirability and which are also eco friendly. Yet have we gone far enough? Having travelled extensively recently from Helsinki in the north to Sri Lanka in the south I am still concerned that the vast majority of consumers are unperturbed about where or how their clothes are made, or for that matter how little they can be produced for. Interestingly Sri Lanka has worked with textile design-ers, and garment designers and undertakes great efforts to provide eco friendly yarns, manufacturing and put something back in to the surrounding communities and landscape.
However there is a new breed of company flying the ethical flag in the west including ‘Pachacuti’ who make Panama hats from Ecuadorian co-operatives: they who guarantee a fair wage and are therefore proving it is a viable option. However there needs however to be a greater enforcement of ethical and sustainable fashion or textile standards .Are we transparent enough or does transparency need to be the ‘norm’ [e.g. supported by every high street store]. Are there enough natural resources available for the amount of garments being produced, and, will it be the textile designer’s responsibility to highlight the potential problem and encourage designers to make more ef-
ficient use of limited resources and utilise new fibres? The fashion cycles need to change, as in this new pe-riod of global warming they are less relevant. We no longer have such a defined winter and summer seasons. Textiles and fashion should adapt a strategy derived from the slow movement. Experiences and craft are the new modesties as luxury becomes vulgar rather than about high value. There is an opportunity to make something that more likely to appeal for its uniqueness. The craftsmanship of the product or textiles is then valued rather than its price tag. Labour intensive skills and experience are crucial to the process; so there is a definite shift in emphasis. It’s moving towards a more localised experience such as handcrafted textiles from Yorkshire as opposed to mass produced cloth in vast quantities from China.
The future needs cross-discipline projects in order to expand and develop information sharing. The chal-lenge will be our ability to utilise science into the textile industry. Science and technology are moving at such a pace that textiles can become full of sensory qualities. In design thinking terms it’s about ‘Think, ‘Touch’ ‘Reflect’ and ‘Analysis’. The ideas will come out of the research. If this is applied to textile research then new construction of yarns may arise. The textile cloth mills therefore need to listen to textile design-ers whose otherwise valid research will remain in the research vacuum leaving us with a ‘sole less’ future instead of a woven path to success.
References:
1.Walter Benjamin and the Arcades projectby Beatrice Hanssen Continuum International publishing 2006. Chapter 7 PAGE 282, point 24.
2.Jocks and Nerds by Richard Martin and Harold KodaPublished by Rizzoli 1989. The dandy page 188.
3. Twist magazines –World Textile publication Ltd article on International Mohair summit, December 2009 p18.
4.Twist magazine –World Textile publication Ltd.Article on Reid and Taylor, April 2010 p 36.
Footnotes.
Premier Vision-Twice yearly Fabric trade fair in Paris France.Unica Twice yearly Fabric trade fair Milan Italy.Texprint an organization whose aim is to link the best newly graduated textile designers with the textile and fashion industry. It is a non-profit making registered charity.Burberry is a British Luxury clothing and accessories brand with stores and franchises worldwide.Gieves and Hawkes is a bespoke garment maker situated on Savile Row London with a retail clothing collec-tion.Fox Brothers is a wool and cashmere textile manufacturerBased in Somerset England.Reid and Taylor supply’s woolen and worsted luxury fabric to the leading fashion companies worldwide. Based in Langholm Scotland.Clissold is a textile mill based in Yorkshire England makingfine British woolens and worsted cloth.William Halstead is a textile-weaving mill in Bradford YorkshireSpecializing in wool and Mohair cloth.
Pachacuti hat brand importing fair trade panama hats from EcuadorHamish Bowles is the European editor at Large for Vogue Fashion magazine. He is a recognised authority on Fashion Design.
Bruce MontgomeryProfessor in Design CraftsmanshipNorthumbria University
