Effective Ways of Teaching Form Studies as a Course to Product Design Students

Form studies has been a very important course to build the foundation for Product Design students. A form of a product or any object should fulfill the emotional needs of the user for which it should have the visual qualities desired by the user. These qualities are not easy for the students to perceive during the early years of graduation. Even if they can perceive them, then many of the students find it difficult to translate them into the form due to the lack of sketching and visualization skills. Therefore, the students often face difficulties in understanding the nuances to create a form. Many of the students struggle in understanding the logical process of form generation which is very important to generate the emotional qualities in a Form. Therefore, it requires training of the eye and mind to understand the process of form creation. Nature is seen as the biggest source of inspiration for designers. One can see the principles of design present in many of the natural forms present in nature. This paper demonstrates and explores the steps involved in teaching form studies as a course at the University to interior and product design undergraduate students taking inspiration from nature. The importance and effectiveness of this course is demonstrated in this paper through hands-on activities and assignments which are given to the students at the University.