2021
Inbetween noise and brand
Sound phenomena in the context of product design.
Designing acoustics on the object will in future go far beyond strengthening the brand or reducing noise - in future, it should rather be a design concern to exploit the acoustic potential of the products and thus integrate relevant information into everyday life.
context
BFA productdesign thesis @ HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd
team
single project
[challenge]
The neglected sense
In recent years, the acoustic sense and its semantic value has been neglected in design.
[main research insight]
87% of the day, we perceive sounds that come from human-designed products
If we pay attention, we can consciously observe how many sounds and noises we perceive in every situation of the day and what information they convey to us. On average, we are in artificial environments 87% of the day (World Health Organisation, 2013), which means that for the most part we perceive sounds that come from human-designed products. This acoustic information is captured by our senses and decoded in our minds using existing concepts. These relationships of meaning and the resulting interpretations are enormously important for us, and yet the acoustic sense has been neglected in recent years, especially in design.