STUDENT LEARNING EXPERIENCE ON EARLY PHASE OF AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN PROCESS

In design domains, sketching plays as an important role in the design processes as well as in the design activity. Sketching is used to stimulate the thinking process, for communication and discussion of designers’ ideas and as a means of recording ideas for future development. Nonetheless, a study revealed most design students from higher education institutions whose doing industrial training with industry are weak in their sketching skills. Two National Automotive manufacturers who agreed to take these students to do their placement with them confirm most students could not express their ideas on papers. Investigations were conducted via sketching tasks with students and were analyzed. The investigation demonstrates sketches process and flow has a significant effect for students’ aptitude for sketching. It appeared that, during their process of sketching, students were found to have difficulties in generating the perspective angle of the vehicle. It was also found that these students were not comfortable with the hand movement especially when they ‘sweep in’ the lines. This study has led to a sketching convention characterized by few viewing angles and a strict sequence involved in the automotive sketch development.