An innovative approach to the aesthetic design

As the aesthetic aspect of a product is becoming more and more important in customers' decisions, there is an increasing need of tools able to express and preserve the styling intent during the product development cycle, while offering an interaction with the user much more adherent to his mentality. The European Project FIORES-II (Character Preservation and Modelling in Aesthetic and Engineering Design) is aimed at creating innovative CAD tools capable to capture and preserve the product aesthetic character and make it accessible in a multi criteria approach for styling and engineering design optimisation. In order to explore the possible relationships between emotional character and product shape, an extensive analysis has been carried out, thanks to the collaboration of industrial designers in the automotive field, such as BMW, Pininfarina, Saab, and in household supplies field, such as Alessi and Eiger. In this paper, the main outcome and the innovative design functionality defined on the basis of the results of the above mentioned research will be presented.