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Design & Self Expression: a relationship between person and object designed.

Natalia Chaves Bruno; Graduate in Desenho Industrial; Puc-Rio

nataliacbruno@gmail.com
Alan dos Santos Bruno; Graduate in Desenho Industrial; Puc-Rio,
alanbruno@aluno.puc-rio.br
Roberta Avillez; Graduated in Social Communication, with emphasis in Advertising
and Publicity; PUC-Rio.
robertaavillez@gmail.com
 
Abstract
This paper aim’s to offer a reflection on the emotional relationship of users
with designed objects. Functioning as open works, products that invite interaction,
allow individuals to differentiate themselves, promoting social welfare through the
enhancement of self-expression. From the survey and analysis of products already
on the market, we have initiated a methodology projetual that is still under
development. We present here some results of our project.

Context
Comparing the Modern Society to the Antiquity or the Middle Ages, we note a
different way of living. This difference, according to Simmel 1987 and Bauman, can
be seen by the emergence of the metropolis and its complex system.
Living in a big city provides more mobility and access to information, what
makes distances shorter and brings people closer. Modernity brought the
understanding of differences between individuals. That provided greater freedom of
action and self-expression too. In the past, we had closed ties just inside the
community. Nowadays, these barriers were knocked down, increasing the number
and diversity of the social bonds.

“In the measure that the group grows (…) its immediate inner
unity and the definiteness of original demarcation against others
are weakened and rendered mild by reciprocal interactions and
interconnections. And at the same time the individual gains a
freedom of movement far beyond the first jealous delimitation,
and gains also a peculiarity and individuality to which the
division of labor in groups, which have become larger, gives
  

both occasion and necessity. (…) Small town life in antiquity as

well as in the Middle Ages imposed such limits upon the
movements of the individual in his relationships with the outside
world and on his inner independence and differentiation that the
modern person could not even breathe under such conditions.
Even today the city dweller that is placed in a small town feels a
type of narrowness, which is very similar. “ (SIMMEL, 1987,
p.19)
The quest for individuality is extremely important because it is necessary to
show the world what differentiates us from the others. The search for distinction is
characteristic of human beings. And one of the ways, we distinguish ourselves from
the others is through the consumption of products and lifestyles. An artifact is beyond
their practical functions when it says something about the person who is consuming
it, his relationships, values, etc., when it represents a person identity (Douglas,
Isherwood, 2004).
According to Klaus Krippendorff (2000), the paradigm shift from product
design to property, information and identities resulted in a change of focus, moving
from object to humans. The human-centered design values the relationship between
the artifacts and us. The user participation is extremely important in the process of
signification.

Self-expression and memory

The human-centered design, adapted to the user experience, and especially
the emotional relationship between people and the object designed are the focus of
our research conducted at the Laboratório Memória, Design – Labmemo (Laboratory
Memory, Design and Emotion – Labmemo).
The founding idea of this new approach, presenting the perspective of
Emotional Design, is that the products involved in our daily actions, mediate social
relations, promoting experience, evoke feelings and affect and shape our attitudes
and behavior (Damasio, 1996 and 2004, Csikszentmihalyi, 1995). They do more than
perform mechanical functions. So, it is necessary to understand the act of design, not
only as a creation and development products act, but also, more importantly, as a
promoter of social change in line with common good. Considering that physical
objects mediate all human relationships, the laboratory group sought theoretical and
methodological references also in the field of Social Sciences.
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As an example, we have the opinion of the psychologist Donald Norman

(2004): “objects are more than mere material possessions. We take pride in them,
not necessarily because we are showing off our wealth or status, but because of the
meanings they bring to our lives. “These objects - which are stored in our emotional
memory – are the products of our research. The psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi (1995) goes even further and states that the "meaning of our private
lives is built with these household objects " By this he meant that the artifacts that are
around us say a lot about ourselves, our personality, about what we love, what we
want and how we live.
To better understand the relationship between people and what Professor
Vera Damazio calls "artifacts of memory", an extensive investigation has been done.
She, as the supervisor of Labmemo, used anthropological research methods,
including participant observation and interviews with different types of people. This
work culminated in her thesis.
Vera Damazio believes that all of us have, physically or in memory,
memorable objects, that bring back good memories. According to her, they are
"tangible remnants of our most valuable experiences. They shape our future
decisions and choices" (2005).
In this context, Damazio divided the objects she collected during her research
into categories of memories. In one of those types she identified the objects that
became memorable because the user had personalized them. These products
express the user's identity and can distinguish a person from another.
With the development of research, these objects formed the category of
Emotional Design called Design & Self-expression. "From the standpoint of self-
expression, the design should express ’exactly what we want’ and this includes
products that can be individualized and processed according to the occasion and will
of the user" (Santos, 2010).

Product personalization
According Blom (2000), the personalization of a product is a process that
changes the functionality, interface, information content, or distinctiveness of a
system to increase its personal relevance to an individual. When you personalize a
product, you give to the artifact individual characteristics of your personality and that
makes it unique.
  

We identified a close relationship between self-expression and emotional

attachment, studying Mugge (2007). According to the author, for personalizing a
product’s appearance the consumer must invest directs time, effort, and attention to
the product. In other words, the consumer invests energy on it. And because of that,
this artifact is going to have more value to the user if compared to another object that
has not gone through all this process.
Analyzing the relationship between personalizing and emotional attachment,
Mugge (2007) reflects on the most common way of personalization, customization.
The author defends that customized products do not have a truly individualistic touch,
because the consumer cannot make any creative alterations during the
personalization process. According to her, customization merely increases
consumers’ choice in alternatives.
The personalized product becomes a form of expression, because it is laden
with symbolic value, showing a person to itself and to the others, building and
maintaining a personal identity. In this case, the artifact that allows the user
interference is in line with the ideas of anthropology of consumption that sees the
consumption ratio as a way of developing an identity.

Anthropology of Consumption
Man is essentially a cultural being. Culture is "second nature" of an individual,
is a condition that he has little chance of escaping. Just like he can not escape from
his biological nature. (Cuche, 2002). Everardo Rocha presents this "second nature"
through the use of totemism, but attributing it only to modern society. The "totemism"
is a classification system to assign a culture to nature. "When a social group - a 'clan'
- was identified with an animal or a plant, close connections were stablished with this
animal or planet. This would also distinguish it from another group” (Rocha, 1985:
104).
Totemism is understood as a conceptual system (Rocha, 1985). So we can
not attribute nature characteristics to a clan. The same is done with the men, through
objects consumed. These objects give identity and cultural characteristics to
societies and individuals (Rocha, 1985). The totemical mechanism articulates the
differences between natural and cultural (Rocha, 1985). The "totemism" allows that
the opposites look like complementary and the equals, different (Rocha, 1985).
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We adopt in this article Levi-Strauss’s theory of culture. The culture is

understood as a symbolic language: “Every culture is a set of symbolic systems as:
language, rules of marriage, economic relations, art, science, religion. All these
systems seek to express certain aspects of physical reality and social reality, and the
relationships that both kinds of reality establish with each other and with others
symbolic systems.” (APUC Cuche, 2002: 95)
A language can influence a culture, and also be influenced by it. An
interdependent communication always happens unconsciously inside the community.
And this language called culture has two phases in a man’s socialization. The
primary one occurs in the childhood; and the second one, during all the adult life. The
human being has two “natures”, the biological and the cultural, because in both of
them he is unconsciously influenced, and can not escape of them. Thus, social
phenomena are cultural as well, and can be regarded as a symbolic phenomenon.
Culture is a living organism that is always changing. According to Margaret Mead,
that occurs because the culture creators transmit and transform it constantly (Cush
2002). These different cultures can be understood as a cosmos, in which multiple
universes live harmoniously in a system of continuous exchange. Men make the
transformations in the cultural universes, but they only are aware of their identities.
“Man knows only what is necessary to understand the different status of his culture
(sex, age, social condition, etc.) and with that, understand his role in society”.
(Cuche, 2002: 84). Culture complements identity. While the first is an unconscious
process, the second is conscious. Culture is inclusion and exclusion at the same time
and that establish social and symbolic boundaries between 'them' and 'us' (Cuche,
2002). Because while the identity is used to find people with the same point of view it
also serves to exclude them from other groups. "In this perspective, cultural identity is
a method to categorize the distinction we / they, based on cultural difference"(Cuche,
2002: 177).
The identity is hybrid, multicultural and is influenced by many cultures. Is the
result of interactions of many groups (Cuche, 2002). "The identity works like Russian
Matryoshka dolls, conceived of as concentric circles one inside the next” (Simon,
1979, p.31). But despite being multidimensional, the identity does not lose its unit
(Cuche, 2002: 195). "Identity is what is at stake in social struggles" (Cuche,
2002:185). It is a mechanism that makes a group consciously to claim a brand, and
her differences to the other groups. "The culture depends largely on unconscious
  

processes. The identity refers to a binding norm, necessarily conscious, based on

symbolic oppositions. "(Cuche, 2002: 176)
"The social identity of an individual is characterized by the set of his relations
in a social system such as gender, age, social class, nation. The identity helps the
individual to be located in a social system and also be socially located.” (Cuche,
2002: 177)
So now that we know a little bit more about the concepts: culture and identity,
we can talk about consumption. Both culture and identity are related to the act of
consuming. "Therefore, we can say that products and services talk to each other, talk
to us and talk about us" (Rocha, 2006: 31). The act of consumption is a cultural act
(Barbosa, 2008) that helps in the construction of identities. We consume having in
mind elements of material culture and that generates identity affirmation,
differentiation, inclusion and social exclusion.
"The consumption is a system that classifies goods and identities, things and
people, differences and similarities in contemporary social life" (Rocha, 2006: 31).
Consumption leads to the construction of lifestyles, a way of self-expression, a
personal style and a self-awareness (Barbosa, 2008). "The objects and the goods
are used as cultural signs to produce significant effects in a given context"(Barbosa,
2008: 23). The construction of identity is related to what Livia Barbosa, calls “empire
of self ethics”:
Now my choice is the criteria for the purchase of anything. It is the empire of
self ethics, in which each of us becomes the arbiter of our own choices and have
sufficient legitimacy to create our own fashion according to our aesthetic sense and
comfort.” (Barbosa, 2008: 22)
Thinking about this, design is related to consumption and identity creation.
Self-expression is a behavior of a Western culture, is the answer to our quest for
differentiation. When we design by our own hand, we give uniqueness to the product.
We attribute signs and meanings to consumer’s self-expression. It’s totemism".
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Examples of Design & Self-expression

To better understand the products that allow users' self-expression, we
conducted a survey of objects already on the market. From its analysis and
identification of similarities, we started to outline a methodology projetual for the
development of self-expressive products. Below some examples of this category:

Tangran
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a98-deJzt_M/S0S_jo6DmNI/AAAAAAAAAF4/D8oCnrHvekk/s1600-
h/Tangram+%28decora%C3%A7%C3%A3o%291.jpg accessed 26 october 2009

The shelf Tangran developed by the italian designer Daniele Lago has seven
geometric pieces. Combined they can produce many shapes and positions in
accordance with the wishes and needs of the user.

More furniture system

http://www.caporasodesign.it/eng/More.html Accessed 18 november 2009.

“MORE” furniture system, developed by Giorgio Caporaso, allows different

combinations of modules and functions, and hence different forms according to the
wishes and needs of its users.
  

Verb
http://www.criadesignblog.pop.com.br/tag/marlon+darbeau Accessed 18 november 2009.

Created by designer Marlon Darbeau, Verb is an object composed of three

interchangeable parts. It assumes many roles according to the user's desire. It may
be a desk, a lamp, a bench, a bookcase, or an object of decoration.

Moldable Mouse
http://poliuretano.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/mouse-moldavel-feito-de-poliuretano/ acessed 3
june 2010

The Lite-On’s Moldable Mouse is a conceptual project that proposes the use
of composite materials (clay, nylon and polyurethane). The user can shape its
contours to whatever form he desires.
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Do hit Chair, Do Scratch Lamp, Do Break

http://boingboing.net/2008/05/02/droogs-do-hit-chair.html
http://dailypoetics.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/13/277605de13b3
6.jpg http://www.droog.com/projects/events/do-create-on-location/do-break-by-frank-tjepkema---
peter-van-der-jagt/ accessed 3 june 2010

The project "Do Create" created by the dutch company Droog Design, offers
some products that aim to promote the "personal production" and encourages the
user to interact, play and interfere in the final shape of the object.

Color in Dress
http://www.ecouterre.com/diy-colour-in-dress-is-a-coloring-book-you-can-wear/ acessed 28
december 2010
The Color in Dress was a dress created by the designers Soepboer Berber
and Michiel Schuurman, which allow the user to color the pattern, creating different
and unique clothes.

Analysis
Analyzing the examples above, we understood that there are different ways to
develop a product that allows the user interference. The first three examples have
the same essence: modules or interchangeable parts. The shelf Tangran and More
are composed of modules that can be organized by the user. Verb, in turn, has
  

interchangeable parts that when combined form and interfere with the function of the
artifact.
The Lite-On’s mouse is malleable and allows the user interference. The
moldability concept is present on two products of the project Do Create “Do Hit
Chair” and “The Break”(Figures 6 and 7, respectively). In all these examples, the
materiality of the artifact is presented to the user. So, he can make necessary
interferences, without being tied to presets.
Another way of personalization explored was the change of the product’s
interface, as illustrated in Figures 7 and 9. In both projects, the user is invited to
participate in the creation of the product without necessarily interfering in form or
function, but in the image that the object would be presenting. In the case of " Do
Scratch Lamp", the operation of the device is subject to interference, only when the
user scratches the black part, the light illuminates the place. The dress “Color in
Dress” has different patterns according to visual interpretation of the user.

Methodological insights
After analysis of these and other examples of artifacts that allow self-
expression, we believe that is important to consider the concepts of moldability,
modularity, interchangeability and interactive interfaces to develop a project that
stimulates the expressivity. We understand that the product needs to invite the user
to manipulate and transform it, and these concepts can make a simple artifact an
object that invites interaction.

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