Food Design Thinking: A Branch of Design Thinking Specific to Food Design

Abstract Is there a need for a set of methods within Design Thinking tailored specifically for the Food Design process? Is there a need for a branch of Design Thinking dedicated to Food Design alone? Chefs are not generally trained in Design or Design Thinking, and we are only just beginning to understand how they ideate and what recourses are available to them. Given the sheer variety of eating situations, and the complexity of the factors influencing them, a design method that specifically stimulates thinking about Food Design would be very useful. I introduce TED (Themes for Eating Design, a design method developed to generate themes on the ideal eating situation, which summarizes the themes it has generated in previous research, and how these themes have been transformed into a tool for the idea generation phase called “Thoughts For Food”). I present an initial test of TED and Thoughts For Food in practice, with groups using them to design an eating experience. Initial results suggest both have promise for designing food or any other aspect of the eating experience and that these methods can form part of a new branch of design theory that I call Food Design Thinking.