Design Council: Design Glossary #1 - 'Co-Design'

The Design Council are in the process of 'crowdsourcing' a series of design terms to help designers define their value to clients. The first term is: co-design...

The term 'co-design' is frequently used within the field of design but use, application and principles vary depending on context and discipline. Last year I carried out come research into co-design and presented on open lecture to a large group of students, tutors and my PhD supervisors.

Co-Everything: Defining Co-Design within the field of fashion & textiles was a thirty minute presentation followed by a question and answer session. This was a really valuable exercise for me as a designer and researcher... I found that the landscape is huge and the term co-design is associated to multiple modes of design practice. The question and answer session enabled the audience to challenge co-design, contribute their opinions and share their insights with me.

Following on from 'Co-Everything' I designed and facilitated a series of exploratory co-design workshops with textile design students. These workshops are going to be expanded upon over the next twelve months... If you are interested in participating please send me an email.

What is co-design? Instead of a definition I have made a list

Co-design is a method / an act of collective creativity / it bridges the gap between the designer and the user / goes beyond specialist mindsets / welcomes the unexpected / should encourage a playful approach / is a shared experience / ...

To add your definition visit the design council facebook page... I am going to submit something more specific this afternoon.

What is textile design research by Duck Journal

Ice-fern by Aurélie Mossé and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen

Duck , the electronic journal for Research in Textiles and Textile Design published by the University of Loughborough has launched its first issue. This volume explores, through a series of eleven papers, the nature and significance of current Textile Design research and aims to establish a platform for future discourse. Together with designers such as Linda Worbin or Elisabeth Heimdal, I have been publishing about my work in this issue where I unfold parts of my current research on energy-harvesting and self-actuated textiles by addressing the role smart textile can play in a domestic context. Discover more about these cutting-edge textile research, the journal is available for free at this link.

My Crowdsoucing / Crowdvoting Experiment!

My Entry 2010

I am participating in a little project inspired and driven by my research project. As well as exploring co-design concepts for fashion and textile design, I am really inspired by social networking and new technology. Therefore I have set myself a 'crowdsourcing / crowdvoting' challenge and would love you to participate!

Crowdsoucing is an act of outsourcing tasks to the crowd through an open call for participation. The designs produced are openly revealed to the pubic who can cast votes and submit comments.

"Talenthouse is a platform providing opportunities to the world’s creative community – a place to participate in unique projects with artists and brands, collaborate, gain recognition and compensation."

I have submitted a fashion design concept for their creative invite to design a stage outfit for Florence from Florence and the Machine.

The Process

Stage 1: Create a design concept and submit

Stage 2: Gather support

Stage 3: Collect votes

Stage 4: Voting closes

Stage 5: the votes are counted

Stage 6: the top ten awarded a runner's up prize

Stage 7: the final five are sent to the artist who chooses the winner!

How it Works: all participants need to gather a bit of a following... they can use twitter, facebook, google news and email to promote their design and invite people to support them within this process. So, I have uploaded my design and am now working on stage two - gathering support!

If you would like to participate and support me during this experiment visit my Talenthouse and click the 'support jen' button. Stage three: voting, begins tomorrow and all supporters will be invited to vote via email or facebook!

I am going to blog about my progress and the experience itself throughout the duration of the week.

Will it be easy to collect votes or will I fail miserably... how will be design be received... do people love/hate it? It is officially out my my control and in your hands...

View my submission and show your support