Product Design and the Role of Representation : Foundations for Design Thinking in Practice

"This book responds to the expression ‘all you always wanted to know about design representation but didn’t know where to ask’. Indeed, the book is a thematic guide to design representation, and the amount of information about design representations it holds is phenomenal."

Professor Gabriela Goldschmidt

Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

This book extends understanding of the design process by exploring design representation types and examining them as theoretical constructs. It shows how fidelity and ambiguity inform the creative act of design, and considers design thinking through the lens of design representation.

Design thinking is a method that has the potential to stimulate and enhance creativity. This book enhances understanding of what constitutes design thinking, why it is used and how it can be applied in practice to explore and develop ideas. The book positions a particular type of thinking through design representations, exploring this from its roots in design history, to the types of thinking in action associated with contemporary design practice. A taxonomy of design representations as a scaffold to express design intent, is applied to real world case studies.

Product Design and the Role of Representation will be of interest to those working in or studying product development, engineering design and additive manufacturing.