Tackling design fixation of cultural product designers through homeomorphism

Abstract

Design fixation affects the emotion of a designer and so the quality of his design. This paper is to explore how an understanding of cultural product design through homeomorphism—a mathematical concept—can assist in tackling design fixation of cultural product designers. In particular, homeomorphism offers a scientific viewpoint toward a cultural product, dissecting it into structures and features that are all bounded by cultural rules and influenced by biases, the functions of rules, that shape their manifestations. The features define the variants of a cultural product, while the structures define its invariants. This paper concludes that homeomorphism in cultural products tells cultural product designers what to change and what to reserve, providing a means for them to tackle their design fixations.