e-co-textile design: Constructing a community of practice for textile design education

This paper explores the potential of using co-design methods combined with Web 2.0 to argue a new approach to textile design practice and education. 

Over the last decade digital media has evolved and terms such as; pro-am, prosumer and prosumption are familiar phrases used to define professional amateurs and proactive consumers. The use of digital technology has become so heavily embedded within our culture that we no longer focus on the technology but the innovation it enables: What does it do? How can we use it? Technology has become so embedded within the lifestyle of youth culture growing up within this media age, Generation Y (Gen Y), that it becomes transparent, like the air. They do not talk about the technology but define it through use and experimentation. As consumers they want to be prosumers co-innovating products and services, they use digital media to edit, create and distribute their own content, they collaborate by constructing their own social networks and they innovate by becoming active participants within the design process. 

A series of research questions will be explored through this paper such as: what would the role of the professional designer be in the future? Can co-design mediate practice between designers, consumers and pro-am's? This paper will provide an insight into co-design methods by reviewed practice and application within a textile design context to argue that it has the potential to create new opportunity spaces for working and promote sustainable practice. This will be made possible by provoking a series of research questions that can be expanded upon through further research.