Gianni Montagna

The Role of Human Factors in Surface Design

We live on an era of awareness where the uneducated end-user from the past, gives place to an informed and demanding consumer in the present, who seeks for a product that meets the ever-changing needs of his day-to-day life. If yesterday we were slaves to the dictatorship created by international fashion brands, today we seek to break free from the fashion cycle that enslaves us with its impositions of time and contemporaneity. The fashion system is failing. Fashion trends are weakened with the constant flow of information powered by the internet. Consumers can now define their personal styles, creating their own “micro-trends”. With this resurgence of clothes, concepts like uniqueness and quality will arise, reviving the cult of exclusive garments. Customization of fashion products emerges as a way to reinforce self-identity, allowing the end-user to control in a more intrinsic way the image he shares to the world. This article aims to identify the potentialities of customized surface design in the fashion industry, trying to understand the strategies to use in the management of human factors in user-based designs. This study is part of a Ph.D. investigation on the role of textile surfaces in fashion.

Design and Business: Growing Up as a Separate Couple

This paper addresses the difficulties faced by postgraduate design students (DS) and professional designers (PD) concerning the design, development and implementation of business projects (BP), and of sustainable management (SM). The DS have not previously attended any specific course, either dealing with BP, or having had training in SM. A test administered to 60 DS enabled to picture issues regarding: (i) the sense of discomfort regarding business and management areas, due to lack of skills, and (ii) the special requirements for skills in unfamiliar areas such as production, management, marketing and product stewardship. The study determined that DS perceive the need for educational policies that allow the acquisition of new skills in the referred areas. However, it seems that they are not sensitive to BP/SM scientific’ research importance. Findings point out a direction to curriculum development to bridge Design and Business areas, by overcoming the identified gap.

Design and Development of the Plus Size Bra

The creation of a plus size bra, brands have to be aware of the size range they want to produce. This will certainly focus on the costumer that can consume this product, however the user also does not have an easy task. They have to review their fitting according to size, as each brand differs and the problem increases from country to country. In the Portuguese market of Plus Size, the diversity of sizes of bras is only achieved thanks to the importation of products that go according to the real needs of support and comfort of the users. In national brands, the choice is very limited, always concentrating their products in a utopian idea of 34B size.

Digital Ergonomics: Understanding the Bridges to the Digital World

The actual, hypermodern individual no longer focus his existence in the realm of the “sensible objects”. He lives in a constant existence dichotomy where physicality and virtuality live together to create new forms of humanity. Identity, space and time are blurred and the previous boundaries are questioned. The digital languages are a natural evolution of our society, silently changing the way we live and deal with each other and ourselves. The study of these subjects is essential to trace the cultural paths we are making as global community of gradually disconnected individuals. With these colligated existences, “bridges” between digital and “real” worlds are built in order to allow the “real” human beings to merge with digital realities. By this symbiosis between man and machine, humanity will see its capabilities gradually augmented, and new ways of existence will be found. To achieve this profound connection between worlds, an understanding of human factors is necessary in order to meet specific expectations of end users and to facilitate the immersion of individuals in the virtual environment. With this paper we intend to study video-games as a “bridge” between “virtuality” and “physicality”, and to identify the most reliable paths aiming for a seamless experience, regarding human factors and the users necessities and expectations, with a special attention to the use of character and fashion design as a way to achieve those goals.

How to Improve Ancient Handcraft: The Bobbin Lace

Making an old handcraft in the same way since it already exists is a half way for killing it. A new style about it and a new perspective its necessary. Thinking on this important tradition characteristic, together with the local community from Peniche, in Portugal, we proposed new interventions and possibilities for renovated products.

Human Factors in Aging Consumers

Human factors are a big issue when we talk about the general population and even more if talking about specific groups of users, as in the case of senior. These kinds of users are a group in great expansion with numerous associated specific needs that compete for the development of their well-being and maintenance of a high standard of comfort and health. Identifying the biggest changes seniors find in their bodies over time, how they view these changes, how they adapt to it, is a frequent issue for this type of users, who in many cases do not yet have clothing and equipment specifically adapted to their daily tasks and needs. A bibliographic review and analysis of some case studies will be conducted in order to obtain a more complete picture of the reality that surrounds this group of users and their needs in the choice of clothing.

The Innovation as a Source of Traditional Products’ Survival: The Bobbin Lace from Peniche

Weaving the bobbin lace is a traditional activity from Peniche, a village situated in the west coast of Portugal. This activity is known like art for centuries. However, the traditional way of producing it has been kept as well as the works produced. The bobbin lace hasn’t accompanied the evolution of times nor does it risk innovation. This wrong perspective has led to the discredit of the product, leading the young generations to keep on producing it the way their ancestors have done it – weaving the lace both for home consumption and/or entertainment. In an interventionist methodology, we propose the use of new materials to replace the traditional use of cotton as far as weaving the bobbin lace is concerned as well as the creation of new products. These two parts getting together can and probably will give a new perspective of the traditional and lead to new consumptions and/or applicability to the bobbin lace. Innovation is the key word for doing it. The desire of getting to know the new and the different, recreated from the traditional, will arouse curiosity in the young generations.

The Design Service as an Improvement Tool of the International Show of the Bobbin Lace from Peniche

The starting point is the increasing decline of the bobbin lace from Peniche—Portugal. A product that has been the financial support for many families and today it is only cherished as Peniche’s people’s identity. Between the former and the latter, there is no straightforward path. It was necessary an interventionist approach from the local government so that the bobbin lace would not be forgotten. The service design is called to explain the current situation, the activities, the organization and the infrastructure built around this craft activity. The same service design is called to intervene in the event of the International Show of the bobbin lace which takes place in Peniche. The event is one of the most important activities undertaken by the local government for the encouragement of the bobbin lace. The intervention of the service design states the important relationship of the bobbin lace as a product in relation to the lace makers who are the responsible for its implementation. We are about to present suggestions that influence and strengthen the bobbin lace as a local identity product.

Haute Couture and Ergonomics

This article aims to identify and analyse the use of ergonomics/human factors principles in the context of the haute couture clothing creation process, which presents itself with specific characteristics of the remaining segments of fashion production. With particular attention to the individual body of the end user and their intimate interaction with all the main variables of the garment production, haute couture moves between the subjective dimension and social surroundings of the wearer. For this specific range of the market, ergonomics becomes an inseparable element of the design method in Haute Couture and a key factor for the communication of the brand and its associated values.

Design Changing a Traditional Product in a Contemporary Way

Bobbin lace is a traditional handcraft from a small city located on the west coast of Portugal. Peniche has maintained this familiar activity throughout the centuries. The lace is still woven in the same way and with the same materials. Much in the same way, the finished product has suffered little to no change. Here, design is used to help prevent this product from falling into obscurity. To this end we introduce new materials into the practice of weaving bobbin lace. Breaking with the centuries-old tradition of using cotton, gold, silver and copper thread are used instead, as well as electrical wires. Employing an interventionist methodology we have obtained completely different results, maintaining the tradition of weaving but changing the final products. Presenting a traditional product in a modern and contemporary way.