A Comparison of Working Methods in Industrial Design and the Creative Arts

The pilot study described in this paper is the first study in a programme of research concerning tools for facilitating the creative industrial design process. The specific aim was to compare the working methods of the different disciplines to identify those that might be worth investigating further in future research. The comparison was achieved by reviewing responses from a standard questionnaire that was sent to students studying fine art, textiles, jewellery (and silversmithing), graphics, industrial design and automotive engineering. The open-ended questions focused on high level issues e.g. chosen project type, how they start projects, how and what they research, to try and gain an understanding of their working practices. The main conclusion is that fine art students work in different ways to the other disciplines in the study. In particular, they chose to undertake projects which emphasise expressive or emotional aspects, where as the remaining disciplines concentrated on more tangible outcomes. This indicates that fine art practitioners might be the most suitable for further investigation into methods for facilitating the creative industrial design process