One of instrumental subject taught at the Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design at the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano is the “Computer Graphics Studio”. During this Studio students learn to shape their ideas and their projects and also to represent them by means of a tool that is very hard to use, especially at the beginning. Indeed, the main problem that occurs, when using a new modelling software, is that the student simplifies his ideas because he is not able to produce more complex shapes; as a result the majority of project is featureless not for luck of creativity, but for luck of technical skills.
Industrial Design cares of how a product looks, feels and how it works. The peculiarity of this subject leads up the School of Design to have an “empirical centred” didactic approach, though not forgetting theoretical aspects. Nowadays the Industrial Design project workflow is mainly based on the development of 3D digital models, because they are able to cover all the process, from the original concept design to the final manufacture step. For this reason, Computer Graphics issues are a fundamental element to complete young designers' education, that could help them to represent ideas all along the design process, from the first draft to the detailed final product.
The Computer Graphics Studio is not a Design course, but it is an instrumental course that deals with typical problems of the design process. Nevertheless during this course it is not possible to develop a real design project: students have not an adequate grounding to represent their ideas. Therefore, to simulate a complex idea students make a survey of an existing object, in order to get a deep knowledge of the shape that they will model during the course. In the design process the shape comprehension gradually grows during the creative phase, and the designer becomes more and more aware of the final appearance of his object and how it will look. The Computer Graphics Studio teaches how to communicate the project with 3D digital models –with various levels of detail- during different phases of the project, from concept design to manufacturing. The modelling approach, during the Studio, follows the logic “from general to particular” typical of the design process, training students to trace this procedure.
Another important aspect of the Computer Graphics Studio, despite his instrumental nature, is that it provides both theoretical and empirical notions in a parallel teaching path. Students understand not only “how” to do 3D models, but also “why” 3D modelling software works, understanding the software functionalities. Thus, new designer will easily switch from one software to another, needing just few information about different interface features: this flexibility is frequently asked in the job market.
This paper reports the experience of a teaching team that has been working for long time on the definition of the Computer Graphics Studio course program. All the program contents are accurately chosen and planned, from the 3D modelling software choice to the topics discussed, according to stated principles. This teaching method proved to be effective to improve not only students' technical skills, but also professional and cultural qualities of young designers.