Popular characters of cultural heritage as a reference for contemporary packaging design

Abstract

The heritage festivals in Ecuador keep a series of cultural manifestations, among which are characters loaded with connotative and denotative meanings. Based on which the aforementioned project is argued, whose objective is knowledge and intangible cultural preservation, through a non-heritage technical discipline. Creative aesthetic-functional and symbolic proposals for packaging for various products were generated. The inspirational referents emerge from the popular festive protagonists in the ten provinces of the country. Within the formative research, students of the Graphic Design Career are committed to experimentation, conservation and dissemination of intangible heritage, articulating phases within a technical-creative method. Integrating the investigation, begins with the identification of the problem; the analysis of aspects such as: the target audience, the product, the market, etc.; idea generation; the development of alternatives and finally the realization of models and prototypes. The learning developed was active and collaborative, the student generated his own knowledge, mediated by the research teacher, achieving an intentional approach with intrinsic motivation. The experimental educational environment allowed the integration of identity cultural elements in the design of current products, classified as industrialized. Communicative and pragmatic conventions were broken. The project initially had the intention of making visible and transferring the identity roots, from the generation of visual products developed by the participants, however, it created cultural and emotional links. It resignified the researched and inherited knowledge to be replicated to new audiences, breaking the paradigm regarding the learning of cultural heritage.