Public defence in New Media, MA Kirsi Manninen

Title of the thesis: Touching Costume Sketching: Digital costume sketching using a tablet

Thesis defender: Kirsi Manninen
Opponent: Prof. Anne M. Toewe, University of Northern Colorado
Custos: Prof. Lily Diaz, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

How does the use of a tablet as a digital sketchbook in the design process affect the professional competence of costume designers?

My research focuses on the nature and significance of tablet-based costume sketching in the daily working practice of costume designers who utilize tablets as digital sketchbooks. The present study, grounded in practice, seeks to explore the participants' experiences in order to create characters and costume sketches on the haptic screen of the tablet, with the intention of utilizing these in their collaborative design processes. The material for the study was collected from the following sources: costume design students at Aalto University; interviews with eight Finnish costume designers working in film, theatre and the performing arts and the researcher's own costume sketch archives. Data sources employed in this study include reflections on sketching and interpretations of physical and digital costume sketches.

The objective of this study is to enhance comprehension of costume design, with the focus on the influence of a costume designer's aptitude for touch-based sketching on their subjective evaluation of their own abilities. Additionally, the investigation encompasses the repercussions of utilizing a tablet as a digital sketchbook on collaborative processes and communication within the artistic team. The study addresses the following research question: What impact does touch-based costume sketching/design have on the professional competence of costume designers? It was evident that enhanced control of sketching tools, positive feedback and optimized use of time and space had a favourable influence on the entire costume design process. The findings demonstrate that digital transformation has had an impact on the way in which designers conceptualize their expertise. It can be concluded that costume designers now consider their expertise to be more closely aligned with the needs of their creative teams. It can be reasonably deduced that the findings of this study may be pertinent and applicable to other fi elds of character creation, for instance to animation and storybooks, as well as any collaborative design process where sketching is employed for the purpose of design communication.

Keywords: costume design, digital, touch-based costume sketching, portable tablet, collaboration, competence

Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at Aaltodoc. 

Contact information: kirsi.design@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7486-4923