Culture Rich Design; A Cultural-Semiotic Framework in Product Design

The aim of this book is to extend the application of culture into product design with particular attention to urban streetscape elements (known as street furniture). Poor understanding of culture and the lack of opportunity to use culture in a practical manner within the student group were explored as the problem areas. The initial motivation for the book stemmed from a desire to encourage the integration of the non-technological aspects of the design products, in which culture was categorised. This was believed to mainly achieve by developing a Cultural-Semiotic framework, which enables and encourages design students (novice designers) to approach culture in their projects. Therefore, a hypothesis was formulated to examine the extent of the framework: A culturally orientated framework can be developed to determine important/significant variables to produce predictable culturally relevant changes in product design in general and urban streetscape elements in particular.