Iron Education · 2025
Heritage Spark Design Inspiring Toolkit
by Liang Hou
- A' Design Award 2025 in Education
- CLIENT: Zhejiang University
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 22,874
- Verification code 560D485B79 · Verify this award
Colors
About Heritage Spark Design Inspiring Toolkit
Heritage Spark is a teaching toolkit for design work based on Intangible Cultural Heritage. The toolkit contains three sets of cards. Heritage cards introduce ten forms of Intangible Cultural Heritage for quick understanding. Character cards allow each heritage form to be studied from different roles. Technology cards suggest technical options that can inspire new ideas. Two thought canvases, one personal and one for teams, support collaborative work. The cards are digitally printed on coated paper and die-cut. Heritage Spark is intended for students with no prior knowledge of the subject.
About the A' Design Award
Heritage Spark Design Inspiring Toolkit is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Heritage Spark Design Inspiring Toolkit is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Heritage Spark Design Inspiring Toolkit is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Heritage Spark is one of the few auxiliary tools for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) designing in China. It is highly accessible to students unfamiliar with ICH, enabling them to quickly grasp its various types. Using a collaborative role-playing analysis method, it streamlines the design and creative process. Beyond being a design aid, it also plays a key role in promoting ICH.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The cards measure 95mm x 133mm with a thickness of 0.3mm. The toolkit includes two thought canvases: a personal canvas (A4 size, 210mm x 297mm) and a team canvas (460mm x 960mm) for collaborative work. The packaging box measures 460mm x 320mm x 80mm, designed for convenient storage and transport. The materials and dimensions ensure durability and usability, making the toolkit suitable for various design and brainstorming scenarios.
- Tags
- ICH Design, Inspiration Inspired, Design Assistance, Toolkit, ICH
- Production Technology
- The design was created using Photoshop and Illustrator, then digitally printed on 300g coated paper and die-cut for precision. The process included user research, workshop testing, and design thinking methodologies to refine content and usability, ensuring the toolkit aligns with user needs. The cards were produced in small batches, ensuring quality and adaptability.
- Design Challenge
- The challenge lies in designing a set of cards that can enable ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) novices to quickly understand its value and essence, while also effectively stimulating user empathy to identify pain points from the perspective of ICH bearers. The cards must balance knowledge dissemination with thought stimulation, ultimately encouraging users to contribute innovative ideas for the future of ICH.
- Research
- Heritage Spark cards are designed to provide a quick entry point for users with no prior knowledge of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). This research explores how card design can effectively convey ICH knowledge, foster user empathy, and encourage users to adopt the perspective of ICH bearers. The cards guide users to identify challenges facing ICH, define problems, and utilize divergent thinking to generate innovative solutions for ICH protection and transmission.
- Inspiration
- In the era of rapid technological growth, the protection and promotion of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) face major challenges. Our course experience and student feedback reveal a lack of ICH awareness. To foster innovative ICH design, it is essential to quickly grasp its essence, analyze its status from various angles, and explore its fusion with new technologies. Thus, we created Heritage Spark, a toolkit to inspire creative ICH design.
- Project Duration
- The project started in Hangzhou, China, in January 2024.
- Operation Flow
- The toolkit includes ICH cards, introducing ten ICH to build a quick understanding. Character cards help users explore ICH from different roles and perspectives. Technology cards offer various tech options to inspire diverse designs through integration. Additionally, two thought canvases support process development and idea exchange, fostering collaborative design.
- Image Credits
- The above material comes from our own team.
