Colors in 3D

People that have lived their childhood with a normal vision and in the adult age became blind don’t find too much help in the industry of apparel. Once they knew colors and mind about what they’re matching, it’s an everyday challenge choosing what to wear so that they won’t suffer prejudice at first sight of people able to see. Besides being a matter of fashion or good looking, separate which colors to put together inside the washing machine is also needed, so that garments keep their original appearance. Learning braille is an option, but it’s not that simple for an adult—once literacy is an ability easier when done at the first years of childhood—and sensibility at fingertips is hard in many cases (mainly if blindness comes from diabetes), when talking about the small points that compose that language. This paper suggests a new way to help these persons with the quotidian task of choosing the colors of their clothes, using additive manufacturing to print cheap labels that can be recognized for those who learned to read the conventional alphabet and were used to write when they could see everything. Instead of trying to oblige fashion industry to include, it’s a proposal to aid blind adults to help themselves. The study also suggests a design methodology approach applied to products manufactured by tridimensional printing, able to add virtual simulation and prototyping side by side with evaluation by people with special needs.