Emotional Narrative

Hi all,

Just a little intro seeing as this is my first post. My name is Dalton Brandon, and I’m currently a final year product design student at Nottingham Trent University. I’m doing some research into an area that I’ve always been passionate about, and I’d appreciate hearing your views on the area.

The subject being that design and more specifically products, should not merely fulfil a function, supply a demand or feed a cultural trend. Instead however elicit an underlying emotional narrative and greater meaning/value with the end user. I also believe that with a relatively consumer-driven and materialistic society, that products should mature and develop further character with age and use, to which the user would want to cherish and potentially pass on to future generations.

I’d be interested to know if anyone has any products/objects that they cherish and hold dearly to them, with the hope to potentially pass them on to generations to come. If so, why this particular object? Is it the enjoyment of interaction and function, the developing character of the piece over time and use, purely sentimentality, or any other reason?