Development of a New Cultural Design Process Using Fuzzy Techniques and Idea Flow Methods: a Case Study in Mazu Crown Design

Abstract

Taiwan's cultural and creative industries have established many excellent documents in developing the traditional religious The confluence of creativity and religion has become an important starting point of Taiwan's culture However the development of cultural innovation is restrained by many traditional taboos Due to the innovative and challenging nature of industrial design we have found the unique turning point In this article we use the method of program design and Kansei engineering to discuss the design of the crown worn by Mazu deity Belief in Mazu has a crucial cultural status in Taiwan and the coastal area of Fujian China The design and manufacture of apparel and accessories to be placed on statues of the deity are also considered a sacred and critical part of the religion’s cultural and artistic inheritance Therefore the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between crown hat design and religious cultural images and then to develop new designs for the crown In this study two experiments are carried out The first one is named Idea Flow Design Experiment which is based on the principles of social physics proposed by Pentland and further transforms and creates new procedural design methods There were 6 design experts with related background invited to assist in the implementation of this experiment In the preliminary research we investigated different Mazu temples in various areas of Taiwan and expected to take about 89 photos of crowns of Mazu which will be made into special experimental cards later During the experiment each expert will be invited to complete the selection of the crown design according to the process and rules of the procedural design method The experiment in this stage was aiming to effectively encourage the decision-making of experts so as to select better design samples from a large number of crowns for subsequent experimental analysis The second experiment was named Kansei cognitive design experiment which integrated the methods of Kansei engineering and fuzzy theory to further analyzes the relationship between crown design and religious image of Mazu Generally people's aesthetic evaluation is based on the expression of vocabulary so the fuzzy theory is suitable for dealing with the fuzzy problems of vocabulary and then provides a reasonable quantitative calculation method Therefore this study uses fuzzy techniques to establish a fuzzy localization model of vocabulary evaluation In the analysis process of this model we first use factor analysis to get adjectives that are in line with Mazu and then use fuzzy techniques to calculate the evaluation vocabulary location and differences of each adjective Finally to redesign the crown in accordance to the results of image analysis and the suggestions of experts In the perceptual cognitive design experiment 88 subjects were invited including 3 industrial designer experts 2 craftsmen of hat and crown 10 folk custom experts in the religious field 32 believers in Mazu and 41 subjects with relevant background in design These subjects with the design background and religious cultural background will help us to find the overlapping areas of cultural and creative design by integrating the relationship between them The results of this study could be summed up into five points as follows: first analyze the image adjectives in line with Mazu image Secondly the fuzzy analysis techniques can clearly locate the image of crown shaping Third obtain the shape and design features of the crown that is best suitable for Mazu Fourth to find the image from the verification results which can be used in effective improving the hat crown design Fifth create the most suitable crown design for Mazu In this study the innovative methods of social physics and Kansei engineering are combined to further improve the shape design of Mazu crown And the Kansei design method and fuzzy positioning mode proposed in this study are expected to contribute to the development of Taiwan's religious culture in cultural creative design in the future

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Shuo-Fang Liu (Supervisor)