Abstract:

Cultural elements contribute to the design process in terms of presenting the product to the consumer, marketing it and providing an effective communication with the consumer. Cultural differences become even more important when determining marketing strategies, especially in global markets. Culture, which differs between societies, can also vary in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, sect, education, and training, which are expressed as subcultures within the same society. The designer has a wide range of work including graphic design, research design, visual design, and industrial design. Products are one of the communication tools because they are message and meaning carriers. Colors, research, design, materials, advertising, marketing, and promotion activities used by designers to ensure communication with their target group during product design can attract the product to a certain area and all these dimensions can contribute to the formation of meaning and communication. The product generates meaning within its ecosystem. In the process of producing meaning, factors such as culture, environment, visual elements, materials, and colors of the ecosystem are combined. The products are blended with all the stakeholders and ecosystem in the culture in which they are located. Thus, the product creates its own meaning according to the culture of the target market. In the product design process, all these factors must be combined with conscious placements. The aim of this study is to reveal the effects of culture on design and how cultural elements can be used in designs so that the products can communicate with the target group and meet their expectations. In the product design processes, the contribution of the neological approach, morphological application, topographical execution, formal interpretations, allegorical interpretations, conceptual inspirations to the product design process, and how the culture can be transferred to future generations are explained. Design examples containing elements of different cultures were selected and these approaches were examined through the selected images.

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