Hello everyone,
I am happy to see that this incredible emerging discipline is raising these forms of debate and sharing.
It’s undeniable how intriguing and mysterious bringing the words ‘food’ near to the word ‘design’ can be. The word ‘food’ includes so many aspects of our lives; so many disciplines are involved in its understanding that it seems difficult to imagine one discipline that puts all of them together. But this is what Food Design does: to design food we need to know meanings and functions of food. To design food an endless list of bodies of knowledge can be involved: physiology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, but also aesthetic, engineering, science and of course, design in all its subdisciplines.
Food Design is actually constituted of many different disciplines which differ in design methodologies, material used, concepts and actual final products. Nowadays a slice of cake, a shape of pasta, a chocolate snack, a plate or a fork, a table and a chair and a bakery shop, are all Food Design projects! Design With Food, Design For Food, Food Product Design, Dish Design, Interior Design For Food or Food Space Design all put together the concept of food and the design methodologies.
Only now we are starting to realize what this discipline is, and how to develop it, but if you think about it, food design is as old as humankind. We have always needed to transform food somehow, and transformation implies design. Brillat-Savarin says that meals began when man moved from eating fruits to hunting. Meat brought the family together to eat and this developed an all new range of dynamics. These dynamics are the base for the eating experience, which is the base for food designing.
So, yes, Food Design definitely gives “a golden opportunity for empirical research”, as Professor Friedman said. Empirical research that provides new data emerging from multidisciplinary researches and different fields finally brought together; empirical research consciously defining a discipline that always existed, but that lately became known as Food Design.
I’m very excited about the future prospective that is opening up to the academic world.
Best wishes
Francesca
Francesca Zampollo
PhD student - London Metropolitan University
Founder of International Food Design Society
www.ifooddesign.org
|