DEVELOPING REPRESENTATION SKILLS FOR DESIGNERS: EVOLUTION AND TRENDS IN PRODUCT DESIGN EDUCATION

In the Product Designer's activity, representation techniques play a fundamental role to better describe the different evolutionary phases of a project (F.Celaschi, 2007):
- the "ideational" phase, where the designer comes to define his own idea mainly by hand sketches;
- the intermediate phase of "project development", where more precise graphic instruments are privileged and can enable a more accurate control of the shapes, dimensions and functions;
- at last, the "technical - documental" phase of the project where results are precisely defined with measures providing the required data for production.

Over the past two decades, the impact of the IT tools has partially changed all these phases introducing new opportunities but also new challenges both in the teaching and in the learning processes.

The planning of the educational portfolio for the area of representation and drawing in the Design Schools (both undergraduate and graduate) was adapted by introducing specific courses, especially in the field of technical design and 3D digital models, often to the detriment of traditional drawing courses.

In this context new needs are growing strongly: on the one hand the recovery of hand drawing skills, on the other the integration between the analogical and digital tools that cannot and must not be thought of as opposed and alternative, but instead need to be used as synergic and complementary. (K.Henry, 2012)

Starting with a map of the skills related to the representation of the Product designer and analyzing the drawing skills within and along the different phases of the design process, this research aims at identifying the possible areas of overlapping and integration between the analogue and the digital world in undergraduate courses of Product Design.

The initial mapping activities as well as the insights on possible synergies represents the grounding of an ongoing basic research project, funded by the Design Department at the Politecnico di Milano, to enhance the teaching of representation.