EMOTIONAL DESIGN MEANING

EMOTIONAL DESIGN MEANING

Emotional design is designing with an emotional intention. Every design is emotional but on personal value or concern designers intend to evoke targeted emotions through taking directed design decision. This design try to create products that generate appropriate emotions so as to create good or positive experience for the user.

EMOTIONAL DESIGN IN CHURCHES

In this digital era architects and designers are recognizing intimate relationship one has with his or her physical surroundings. Architects now increasingly becoming poets, creating memorable spaces that energize, calm, uplift and create happiness. In churches lighting can convey emotion, energy, mood and other important elements during church service. Lighting in church has more meaning than just illuminate. It affects the mood of the crowd or worshippers creating more immersive worship experience. Lighting is important as it can lead the congregation down a path of deeper or intense worship. Color is one of the most impacting attributes in lighting. Warm colors like yellow and red convey energy, intimacy and warmth. Others cool colors like purple, blue and green convey majesty, darkness and growth. Further than that pastel convey gentleness and calmness, while saturated color convey intensity and depth. Use of color in church cultivate a climate where people connect deeper with God. Colors create an exciting and timeless place of worship.

The use raw textures where there is a lot attention paid to creating ambiance using unprocessed materials like wood reclaimed from new factory buildings which have purity and honesty to them and also warm lighting which signals the brain to calm down. Simplicity being the basis of modernism is what people emotionally respond to become calmer. Materials such as stones and slate tend to make our bodies feel better as they are completely natural.

Stained glass colors have different meanings in church. Regardless of the role of stained windows in churches for decorations one cannot deny the luminescent beauty of a stained glass.  Red color symbolizes the blood of Christ, this indicate strong emotions such as love and hate. This serves as a reminder of Jesus sacrifice and suffering. The blue color of the sky represents heaven, hope, sincerity and piety. Green the color of grass and nature indicate the growth and rebirth, life over death and faith immortality and contemplation. Violet stained glass window color symbolizes passion, truth, love and suffering. White color symbolizes innocence, chastity and purity which is associated with God. Yellow which sometimes is used to symbolize treachery is more widely used to indicate the halo of saints. Purple symbolize suffering and endurance, it is also used depict royalty. Gray color is a symbol of humility, mourning and also immortality of the spirit. Brown is a symbol of spiritual death and renunciation of worldly things. Rainbow symbolizes union and Gods covenant with humanity.

Church flooring is an important aspect that must be considered as it plays roles in both practical uses and also contributes church’s image on a large scale. From the popular modern options such as polished concrete to more traditional wood or floor tiling each serve a distinct purpose. Flooring in children’s areas should be able to accommodate messes related to children and also enable the to play games comfortably. Hardwood flooring is more sound reflective and it provides the ability in church to hear more natural sound from the musical events and choir. Use of red carpet especially in Catholic religion is a way to symbolize that they would shed their own blood for God. In 19^th century the use of red was a way to show emotions. Flooring should look nice and newcomers and congregation should notice the flooring for its aesthetic appeal.

The lobby of a church is one of the most critical space for creating space for the congregation. It is considered a primary space where people of congregation connect with others. They give people comfort and space to foster relationship with each other, this is an important aspect to them of growing together in Christ.

The church pew or benches are another element related emotional design. They are accessible by aisles for the use of the congregation. There is different categories of church benches which include traditional, modern and curved, to match and complement the architectural and design styles and spaces of place of worship. Traditional pews are always designed to sit comfortably and harmoniously. Modern pews or benchescan be used in both traditional and modern buildings. On design view point they have simple lines so they don’t distract from beauty of the building they occupy. Curved pew or seating is a beautiful design feature that complements building’s architecture which also creates the effect of a congregation being arms inclining the heart of a sanctuary.

Some of emotional design include visceral, behavioral and reflective emotional levels. Reflective emotional design is related with people’s ability to project the product’s impact in their lives after they have used it. This may include how them feel when not holding it or the value we find ourselves attaching to the product in retrospect. Behavioral emotional design is the usability of the product, how well it performs the desired functions and how we can easily learn to use it. Visceral emotional design refers to our first impression or reaction when we encounter a product. It mostly deals with aesthetics and the perceived quality from mere look and feel and the engagement of the senses.