Week 1 – w/c 25/2/19
Briefing
We were informed on how we would be designing a new set of audio speakers in the style of an existing brand, which are appropriately styled, functionally credible, made from appropriate materials and that represent the demands of our target market.
For this brief I will be looking at audio speaker design in the style of Philips as there is clear room for development in terms of functionality. My designs will be focused and catered towards a specific target market clientele, a university graduate, who travels a lot as a consequence of his job.
I will direct and focus my designs towards compact, as well as quality concepts, as typically there is a correlation with portable, compact products and a low quality of manufacture. Doing so will hopefully allow Philips to gain another section of the market in quality compact portable speakers.
This project aims to develop a new desirable portable speaker, which is easily able to be either put away or held for transportation.
Identity
To grasp Philips’ identity in terms of the forms they use and their aesthetic, I created a Pinterest account and made a board of Philips speakers, then a collection of the students in the seminar used post it notes to write down adjectives that described these products. From these I was then able to see which adjectives were used most frequently, giving myself a sort of checklist to base my designs off of, to ensure I kept in with Philips’ aesthetic.
These adjectives were: Geometric, Minimalistic, Symmetrical, Clean and Simplistic.
Primary Research
To see what is currently available in the market of portable speakers I went out into the city centre and looked in multiple different shops, here I saw how readily available Philips speakers were to be purchased or tested. Doing this I saw very few Philips speakers on offer, the majority being either Sony or Ultimate ears. Also looking at these existing products meant I was able to see the forms that each brand of speaker was using.
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