The present invention provides a design support method adapted to support a design of a conveying path by performing simulation of a behavior of a sheet-shaped flexible medium being conveyed in the conveying path and comprising a conveying condition setting step for setting a conveying condition of a conveying roller for conveying the flexible medium, a roller nip calculation step for preparing a finite element model of a conveying roller pair including the conveying roller and for calculating of deformation of the conveying roller in a nip portion of the conveying roller pair, and a motion calculating step for calculating the behavior of the flexible medium in a time-series manner on the basis of the deformation of the conveying roller calculated in the roller nip calculating step regarding a portion of the flexible medium conveyed by the conveying roller pair having the finite element model prepared in the roller nip calculating step and calculating the behavior of the flexible medium in a time-series manner without preparing the finite element model regarding a portion of the flexible medium not conveyed by the conveying roller pair having the finite element model prepared in the roller nip calculating step.