Combining the Bees Algorithm and shape grammar to generate branded product concepts

Abstract

Generating product design concepts to meet functional requirements while maintaining a specific brand identity is a daunting task for a designer. Shape grammars have been applied to describe the creation of branded product shapes via a set of shape rules and were manually used to create a family of new design concepts, which maintain the product brand identity. Nevertheless, shape grammars are not able to evaluate whether the generated new product concepts can fulfil specified functional requirements of a product. In this research work, shape grammar is combined with an optimisation technique known as the Bees Algorithm to derive a computational architecture for generating branded design concepts that can meet a specified functional requirement. This combination approach allows shape rules to evolve while evaluating how well the outcomes of the new design concepts meet a specified functional requirement. This paper describes how the combination of the Bees Algorithm with shape grammar is created to generate branded product concepts, and shows that this approach can outperform a combination of shape grammar with an evolutionary algorithm.