My Exhibition - Designing for Affective Communication, Personalisation and Social Experience

The 21st century has marked a shift in designing away from long-established disciplines geared to particular kinds of “products”. Advanced economies are focusing on cultural production and the consumption of “experience” rather than material goods, designers are stepping outside traditional definitions and new kinds of experts are becoming involved in designing.

There is a second trend, driven by the growth of digital media and the increasing flexibility of modern manufacturing, towards “personalisation” or “mass customisation” in which individuals expect to have precisely what they want, produced in a very short time.

Choice, however, is not an unqualified good. People cannot be expected to wrestle with thousands of possible combination every time they make a decision so designers must develop ways to help choose what will suit us. The central interest of this project is that process of designing for personalisation, especially personalisation of experience. We will investigate how “affective” communication, using visceral qualities of images, sounds, lighting and other sensory factors, can be used to help people personalise experiences.

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