Overview
CMTEL’s Learning Resources site was created specifically for Art Center industrial design students, emphasizing a CMF (color, material and finish) Design perspective. The site is a continuously evolving network of color and material resources including basic color principles, material classification, manufacturing classification, emerging trends, and references. Access to the site is restricted to Art Center students, faculty and staff. For further background on the site’s development, please see the About section at the bottom of this page.
Students can access it anytime and updates will occur continually throughout terms. It will provide links to resources for further learning to enhance your class or studio project work.
The Start > page communicates CMTEL news including events and exhibits. It also displays the latest additions to CMTEL’s Toolkit, Materials Collection, and Product Collection. Please check the page regularly for updates.
The other sections are Color, Materials, Trends, and Toolkit. Please scroll down for more detailed information about each section.
Color
The Color area previews the latest color-related posts from the Trends area, as well as displays CMTEL’s Hues or color families.
Each color family page has a full-height title header and is divided into 4 sections. The first section is Inspiration and exhibits 12 visuals associated with the hue, followed by the latest hue-specific Trend posts.
The second section is Hue which displays the color’s position within the electromagnetic spectrum, describes associated feelings, exhibits its relational position on the color wheel.
The third section is Finishes and displays 3 examples of material or product finishes grouped by material family.
The final section, Methods, depicts the pigments originally sourced to produce the color family.
Materials
The Materials area previews the latest materials-related posts from the Trends area, as well as displays CMTEL’s material families.
Each material family page has a full-height title header and is divided into 4 sections. The first section is Trends and exhibits the latest material family-specific Trend posts, followed by 5 “channels” of material sources for industrial design.
The second section is Material which provides an overview of the material family, taxonomy by name/image, and tools to understand properties.
The third section is Methods and provides an overview of the raw material inputs, corresponding manufacturing processes, and video references.
The final section, Application, exhibits branded product emphasizing the material family.
Trends
The Trends area displays the blog which contains a growing collection of color- and material-related trend posts. Each post offers a description of the color or product trend, link to the source, gallery of images and relevant video.
In addition, you can follow a link to the Events Calendar which provides a chronological view of events known for debuting color and material innovation for design.
Toolkit
The Toolkit area displays digital and physical resources that students can access online or in the lab to augment their design process. There are four different types of tools.
Color Tools help students identify their color biases, specify color choices, and provide deeper information about color types, history, and meaning.
Material Tools enable students to navigate material characteristics, specify material types, and provide deeper information about material properties and manufacturing.
The Materials Collection is a living library of materials including individual samples, swatch rings, and boxed/binder sets.
Finally, the Product Collection is a growing set of iconic and leading products for student interaction and reference.
When browsing the Toolkit and linked collections notations will communicate where to find the resource, how to access it, and whether an appointment is required to use.
About
Design and Development
The CMTEL Learning Resources website was designed and developed by Marshall Hamachi, Associate Director of CMTEL and faculty in Product Design and Graduate Industrial Design. A beta version debuted in Spring 2022; Version 1.0 launched in Fall term 2022.
Following numerous project discussions with students in classes and in the lab, it became clear that students would benefit from a centralized visualization of color and material properties, choices and references. Driven by research from curriculum, industry and reference sources, an information structure emerged which would support continued growth.
The site was developed using WordPress in combination with the Werkstatt theme. Various plugins are used to extend functionality. Although the site is responsive to different device layouts it is recommended to use a laptop or desktop computer for optimal viewing. Because of the site’s proprietary nature, access is restricted to Art Center students, faculty, staff and selected network partners. Site content will be updated periodically and a list of changes will be available in Release Notes.
The visual design is intended to represent CMTEL’s brand identity as closely as possible. CMTEL’s logotype as well as color and material tile icons use the Avenir typeface. Headers and body text are also styled in Avenir. Page background and material family color corresponds to physical signage in the lab.