Design Morphology and Aesthetics

Teaching Hours and Credit Allocation: 30 Hours, 6 Credits

Course Assessment: Exam & Coursework

The main target of this module is to offer students a grounding in industrial product morphology and aesthetics and their influence on product design. “Aesthetics” comes from the Greek word aesthesis, referring to sensory perception and understanding or sensuous knowledge. In principal, designers seek to make a product new and original by introducing differences in the form, colour and texture of a product they bring to market. Product aesthetics is also well recognised as playing a crucial role in evoking preference responses towards product appearance.

The relations between product morphology, novelty and aesthetic preference will be studied in this module.

Designers also need to focus on products’ social acceptability. No matter how advanced a product might be, novelty needs to be acceptable to customers. Such aspects will be also explored in the framework of the module.