Communicating circular messages to fashion consumers
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Industrial design engineering (MPDES), MSc
Publicerad
2021
Författare
Edvardsson, Hanna
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
We aRe Spindye is a company that supplies textiles to fashion brands, with the goal of
making the fashion industry circular by providing sustainable textile innovation. As of
recently, We aRe Spindye offers textiles to their clients made from chemically recycled
polyester which is considered a breakthrough in the pursuit of closing the material loops in
the fashion industry. Upscaling the production of chemically recycled polyester is the next
step of closing the loop, which requires an increased market demand, which depends on
consumers to purchase garments made from chemically recycled polyester, which is why
We aRe Spindye wants to communicate the breakthrough to the end consumer. A design
project was carried out to design this communication, with the aim of exploring what drivers
and barriers impact the communication, how that affects the specific message of
chemically recycled polyester, and how user-centered design can contribute to
communication in a way that fuels circular values and practices in the end consumer.
The design project builds on three studies: the message to be communicated, the end
consumer perspective of the issue, and the business perspective of the issue, followed by
problem reframing and concept generation. The result includes a written analysis of the
three different perspectives, subsequent design guidelines for a communication concept,
and a final design concept. It was found that drivers for communication include information
that is affirmative of the consumer’s driving forces and needs, good user experience,
specific instruction and concrete knowledge. Barriers for communication include ambiguous
information, overwhelming amounts of information and distrust in brands. Furthermore, it
was found that communication needs to take a mixture of informative and enabling
approaches in order for the consumer to be motivated enough to be impacted by the
message. It was also found that the message has the best potential to sink in if looked at
from several viewpoints, which resulted in the final design of 12 part concepts conveying
different messages with different strategies to impact the end consumer