Using a Brand Identity-Focused Project Structure to Improve the Competencies of Product Design Students

Abstract

It is essential to reflect the strategic connotations of the brand on the products while creating and developing a product design that fits the brand identity. Therefore, for a company, it is a critical issue to place the right messages that support the strategic brand identity in the design elements. From the designers' point of view, they are expected to have design skills such as analyzing a brand's uniqueness and brand knowledge and reflecting the results of these analyses on the aesthetics, function and overall meaning of the product. For this reason, as a part of the Industrial Design curriculum, brand identity focused product design has been restructured in Atılım University, Industrial Design program. In this studio course, the aim was for design students to acquire skills of brand identity and product identity analysis, in addition to basic design knowledge and skills. During 16 weeks, the data were collected by doing a participant observation and conducting semi-structured interviews with the course students. The data gathered from the semi-structured interviews and participant observation were analysed by using an inductive coding approach. Thus, product design suggestions that were suitable for the identity of the brand were analysed with the questions asked by the instructors during the design process. The results show that the questions asked by the instructors and the examples they gave, led the students to research, think, question, understand and make sense of the importance of information. As a result, the students obtained design outputs suitable for brand identity.