THE EXPERIENCE OF DESIGN PROCESS:
THE COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE UNIVERSITY AND SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZE FOOTWEAR ENTERPRISES

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the way which students are introduced to the design practice process through the university-industry collaboration footwear design project. The study was held within the Product Design 4 course, in 2006 spring term, with the second year students at the department of Industrial Product Design in Istanbul Technical University. The method employed in the project will be described. The results will be given and discussed with images and representations.

The project is large scale university-industry collaboration.  The collaborators are Istanbul Technical University Industrial Design Department (İ.T.Ü. - EUTB), Turkish Footwear Industry Sector Research, Development and Education Foundation (TASEV), Footwear Industrialists Association of Turkey (TASD), Association of Turkish Footwear Components Manufacturers (AYSAD) and the Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SME) that has manufactured the projects. Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (İTO) has supported this collaboration project.

Students in the early stage of degree programs are inexperienced on design practice and may feel vulnerable. Therefore it is essential to encourage openness the ideas and communication. The project is focused on the significance of the design process rather than the final project.  In order to concretize this rather difficult issue for students, multidisciplinary methods were planned to use.

It is assumed that people use the footwear effectively and students have close relations with their shoes. For this reason the footwear is chosen as the subject. The title of the project was given as “Shoes of the year 2056”.  The project is divided into two stages. First stage was writing life style scenarios of the year 2056 and acquiring a performance from these scenarios. This resulted in students developing a new way of thinking.  Every student designed their concepts boards which were derived from their future lifestyles.
The second stage required students working with the shoe producers and transform their 2056 shoe concepts to the year 2006. The concept boards of 2056 were used for the transformation. This stage can be identified as the “realization phase”. In the design process students were guided to explore the aesthetic possibilities of form, structure and the detail of the construction.

The design process is the essential part of the design education. As the project staff has planned and developed a specific design process for the targeted project, students have experienced a different design process.