Historical Analysis on Product Form Structure Establishment in Malaysian Industrial Design Practices

Abstract

This paper looks at establishing a research framework for National Design Heritage by looking at the form characteristic of modern Malaysian arte- facts. Since the establishment offormal modern design education in Malaysia, there have been numerous attempts to understand the Design DNA that can be repre- sentative of Malaysian products or Malaysian Design Heritage. However, unlike other studies, Malaysian Design Heritage has not been explored from a historical perspective. This is also because formal modern design and design education only began in Malaysia in 1967, to reach its fiftieth year in 2017. These studies nonetheless, has set precedents towards building a framework for a National Design Heritage from a historical perspective, providing a platform for future product branding and aligning national level design activities. Following that, the paper hopes (1) to propose that formally archived artefact in Malaysia is an adequate comprehension of the nation’s design activities, (2) to identify visual form char- acteristics attributable to the design identity of modern Malaysian artefacts, based on form, content and context analysis and finally (3) to identify the scope of Industrial Design activities in Malaysia since its introduction in 1967.