Materials and design

"It is a human characteristic to wish to make things - to take materials and to shape, join and finish them, creating products. And, from the earliest flint knives to the most recent examples of consumer electronics, the form is chosen not only to provide the function but also to create the aesthetics and associations - the perception - of the product. Materials play a central role in this. Their selection to provide technical function is well studied and methods and software tools to achieve it are established and widely available. Their selection to create the aesthetics and associations -…