Empowering Imagination in Design Practice: Focus on Knitwear Design

This paper explores the role of imagination in the field of design, particularly focusing on its possible applications to the process of Knitwear Design. In this context, knitwear is an example of both artistic design, as it is part of fashion design [Affinito et al. in The Design Journal 20:S2760–S2770, 2017; Stacey and Eckert in International Journal of Product Development 11(3–4):241–255, 2010], and of industrial design, when looking at the technology behind its manufacturing process [Conti in Design della maglieria. Strumenti e Metodologie progettuali, Lupetti, Milano, 2013; Motta in Designing Knit Designers. Teaching tools and methods to train professionals for the knitwear industry, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2019; Underwood in The design of 3D shape knitted preforms. School of Fashion and Textiles Design and Social Context Portfolio, RMIT University, Melbourne, 2009]. The contribution tackles the issue on three levels. Firstly, it focuses on the principal characteristics that the pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce attributes to the concept of imagination and how his thought is central to the contemporary debate on semiotic and design. Consequently, it analyses connections between design and imagination [Folkmann in The aesthetics of imagination in design, MIT Press, Boston, 2013] from a philosophical and aesthetical perspective, delving into the contemporary debate on how imagination is evolving in the digital era [Montani in Open Philosophy 3(1):187–201, 2020]. Finally, the focus is on the case of knitwear design, questioning how designers can acquire the skills and knowledge required to engage creatively with digital knit technology on several levels.