Mixed-cultural Jewellery Design ——Case Study On Ghanaian And Chinese Symbols

Understanding how different cultures perceive symbols is an important consideration for designers because they can help to produce products that are sharable across borders while promoting cultural communication that contributes to cultural integration.This study;1.Characterizes symbols into various groups based on cognitive difference by analysing results from administered questionnaires: It was observed that certain symbols were more typical than others.The 15 Most typical symbols were first identified and subsequently symbols that were most suitable for jewellery design was selected from this group.2.Investigates perception differences with the aid of eye tracking technology: Results show that although symbols were perceived in a similar way by both Chinese and Ghanaians,results from compared one-way ANOVA show differences in task difficulty and fixation durations.These results additionally help to identify symbols and elements that had mutually easy recognition duration between the Chinese and Ghanaian participants.These symbols and elements were employed in design processes to validate their essence as mutually recognizable symbols.3.Defines design rules for mixed cultural design and tests them using a jewellery design process:A combination of results from analysed eye tracking results and verbal responses of participants showed mutually preferred symbols and elements among the Ghanaian and Chinese culture.Design principles and merging principles(theorized in this research)were employed for merging symbols for mixed-cultural purposes.A descriptive-focused interpretation was used to analyse results of another questionnaire that was subsequently done to investigate the validity of these symbols as mixed cultural symbols.Results show that among the Chinese participants 24 out of 60 responses indicated that the symbols were inspired by both the Ghanaian and Chinese culture while among the Ghanaian participants,37 out of the 60 responses indicated that the symbols were inspired by both the Ghanaian and Chinese culture.Additionally,jewellery designs were made with these symbols to show their practicality in the innovative industry especially in relation to jewellery design.