The Communication Bottleneck in Knitwear Design: Analysis and Computing Solutions

Abstract

Abstract. Communication between different members of a design team often poses difficulties. This paper reports on the results of a detailed empirical study of communication in over twenty British, German and Italian knitwear companies. The knitwear design process is shared by the designers, who plan the visual and tactile appearance of the garments, and the technicians, who have to realise the garment on a knitting machine. They comprise a typical but small design team whose members have different backgrounds and expertise. Knitwear design allows a detailed analysis of the causes and effects of communication breakdown. Designers specify their designs inaccurately, incompletely and inconsistently; technicians interpret these specifications according to their previous experience of similar designs, and produce garments very different from the designers' original intentions. Knitwear is inherently difficult to describe, as no simple and complete notation exists; and the relationship between visual appearance and structure and technical properties of knitted fabric is subtle and complex. Designers and technicians have different cognitive approaches and are very different people. At the same time the interaction between designers and technicians is badly managed in many companies. This paper argues that improving the accuracy and reliability of designers' specifications would significantly enhance the design process. It concludes with a description of the architecture of an intelligent automatic design system that generates technically correct designs from the designers' customary notations.

Psychological challenges for the analysis of style

“…Thus how we interpret an artefact's features as contributing to its style depends on our knowledge. But we also see emergent visual effects subtly related to structure; and small changes to the definitions of structures can have radical visual effects, for instance in the stitch structures of knitted garments (Eckert, 2001). Conversely completely different artefacts can share a perceptual style, such as Art Deco vases and stained glass windows, or Moorish mosaics and palaces.…”

“…Most of the knitwear designers Eckert andStacey (2000, 2001) talked to said that they see their own designs mentally as detailed, realistic images of garments, similar to photographs. It is quite common for knitwear designers to create, evaluate and discard designs in their heads, sketching only to communicate (see Eckert, 2001). And designers in many fields often imagine designs in greater detail than they require for their current activities.…”

“…They are aware of a variety of superordinate style concepts that cover different subsets of the space of possible garments. Eckert andStacey's (2000. 2001) evidence about how knitwear designers discuss their designs indicates that their networks of style concepts appear to function as lattices.…”

“…This can lead to the misperception of genuinely incongruous features. Mismatched context can lead to the misinterpretation of style information of sketches: this causes communication problems in the knitwear industry (Eckert, 2001). …”

“…Similarly the richer style concepts employed by designers may be defined as mutations of earlier or more important concepts (cf Eckert andStacey, 2000, 2001). Some style concepts are inherently referential: recognising an exemplar involves seeing features as being elements of other styles juxtaposed, distorted or placed in incongruous contexts, for instance military jackets worn by civilians.…”