Modeling
Product design is a three-dimensional discipline, and while the immediacy of marker renderings and the visual gloss and ease of CAD offer huge possibilities, it is essential that designers model their concepts physically and test them in the real world.
Design models serve a variety of purposes. They can be used as part of the design development process, enabling designers to visualize their two-dimensional designs three-dimensionally. This allows them to check the functionality, usability, ergonomics, proportion, and form of concepts and then develop the concepts further as required. Models also help a designer to convey his or her designs to others in a design team or as a final representation of a design to a client. They can be used to test public reaction to a new design, and evaluate its suitability within a market. They can also be used to test the structural integrity of a design before being implemented, or to test a particular part of a design such as a mechanism.
Design models are almost always produced to scale. This can be either smaller than actual size, i.e. 1:5, 1:10, 1:20, 1:50, or 1:100 for large items such as furniture or interiors; actual size, i.e. 1:1; or larger than actual size, i.e. 2:1, 5:1 for very small products or developing new mechanisms. The scale of a model also depends on the stage of the design development. In the early stages of a design project, smaller-scale models are more commonplace.
There are a variety of methods to develop and present their design ideas using models, but designers usually use four distinct types of models: sketch model, mock-up, appearance model, and test rig. Many materials are used, most commonly paper, cardboard, foam core, foam, wood, and clay.
Sketch model
A full-size or scale model that aims to capture the embryonic ideas emerging from the design team’s initial concept development. These expressive and rapidly produced models will progress in complexity, resolution, and finish until the designer or team are confident enough to progress to more time-intensive models.
Mock-up
A life-size physical model constructed from easily fabricated materials such as rigid card, wood, and foam to evaluate the physical interaction, scale, and proportion of product design concepts during the early stages of the process.
Appearance model
A life-size/actual-size model whose primary purpose is to help evaluate the design’s aesthetics and convey detailed finishes, rather than product function.
Test rig
A full-size or scale model that replicates a mechanical action or enables strength, stiffness, comfort, or durability to be tested.
CASE STUDY: De La Warr Pavilion Chair
Design partnership Barber Osgerby use models extensively during the design process to create products that pursue a simplicity and functionality that reflects the qualities of the materials used, and combines a hand-built quality with modern manufacturing techniques.
They were commissioned to design a new range of furniture for the public areas of the recently renovated modernist De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-On-Sea on the south coast of England. Established & Sons manufactured the resulting chair design in 2005, from cast aluminum inspired by the balustrade and detailing of the original building. The distinctive skid leg of this chair was created in response to the observation that many chairs, particularly dining chairs, are first viewed from the rear.
Cardboard model; foam and card model to determine proportions; and second prototype in wood showing the distinctive skid leg.
Initial sketch.
Finished product.
CASE STUDY: One Laptop Per Child
Extensive prototyping was required during the design of the innovative One Laptop Per Child, XO Laptop, designed by Yves Béhar and his San Francisco design studio, fuseproject (Nick Cronan, Bret Recor, Josh Morenstein, and Giuseppe Della Sala), 2007. The concept designed by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child organization, was to create the world’s first $100 laptop aimed at bringing education and technology to the world’s poorest children with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.
Initial sketches.
Exploded perspective (left) and foam mock-ups.
The finished product, from closed to open.