From Mental Characters to Shelf-Ready Commodities: A Three-Stage Translation Model for Commercial IP Design Education in the VR Era

Abstract

The designer toy market and collectible intellectual property have developed into two economic sectors which youth culture uses to create two distinct cultural economies. The design education system must solve two problems which require students to create marketable products from their character designs while maintaining cultural identity and ethical standards. The study implements a three-stage translation model which includes three components: emotion–narrative, form–style, and commodity–scenario-based virtual-reality course for 36 senior students majoring in Virtual Reality Technology at Shandong Foreign Affairs Vocational University. The research used design translation principles from Cross (2018) and Dorst (2019) and techno-vernacular creativity principles from Gaskins (2021) to create an action-based research method which combined quantitative creativity measurements with qualitative interviews and pedagogical log assessments. The study showed that students improved their creative confidence and design scalability understanding, yet they encountered a "speed–depth paradox" which restricted their ability to appreciate various cultural traditions. The study establishes an institutional "ethical pause" system which permits organizations to conduct market acceleration operations by practicing cultural authenticity assessment. The model transforms commercialization into an epistemic translation procedure which enables VR-supported education to function as an educational environment for human-centered creative learning that maintains ethical equilibrium.