The Aram Gallery continued its exhibition series Prototypes & Experiments showing models and prototypes sourced from the studios of established and emerging designers. This display series focuses on the important role model making plays in a design process and charts the development of an object through its physical, experimental steps.

 

The Aram Gallery is interested in the way designers think and develop ideas. Designers often make maquettes and experiment with materials as an initial stage in resolving a design problem. They interrogate materials, create scale models of a detail, make and remake. The culmination of these explorations is manifest in the first prototype. That first 1:1 solidifies the design idea in three dimensions and is a vital step for progression – it enables the designer to look and test the functionality of their work.

 

These prototypes, some of which are deemed failures by their creator, show our audience how makers can design by experimenting and solve by doing. So, failed experiments are just as valid as successes as they force reconsideration of methods and amendments to the design path.

 

In this exhibition, the seventh in the Prototypes & Experiments series, we provided an opportunity for young designers to see how others in their field do what they do. Each participant, from the fields of product design, jewellery, furniture and textile design, shows successive three dimensional trials. Where possible the gallery also displays a 2D sketch as an initial roughing out of the prospective design. The varied examples selected for this exhibition aim to inspire a broad design audience and members of the general public alike and, show the value in experimentation as a vital component of the design process.

 

Participants include:

David Amar, Michael Antrobus, Roger Arquer, Riccardo Bovo, India Carpenter and Giles Round, Marina Dragomirova, Jennifer Gray, Simon Hasan, Kathryn Hinton, Taslim Martin, Amy Pliszka, Daniel Rous, Florian Schmid and International Studio.