Week 2 – w/c 4/3/19

Checking if Our Sketches Match the Brand

After ideating roughly 10 concepts without the logos of our brands we stuck them up onto the walls on the studio and had people again stick post it notes to them with adjectives that they thought described the designs.  This allowed us to check and see if our designs were described as people had described the brands products, which was a useful as a way of checking if we had understood the brands identity.  Some of the adjectives which were used to describe my concepts were simple, soft, minimalistic and clean.  Most of these matched up with my set of adjectives, although I will need to focus of the input buttons/knob placement and how I can incorporate them without damaging the overall form and aesthetic.

Ideation using Existing Products

As a means of coming up with new concepts I printed 10 images of existing Philips products and cut out their individual features and then combined them to create a new set of forms, which I then sketched over.  I continued to do this for several of my concepts as I found it helpful to still incorporate the forms which Philips usually use whist conceptualising a new and different design.

Model Making

After coming up with multiple concepts I chose two which I wanted to make models of using blue foam.  Here I was able to create two quick models and then develop one of my designs further as when I was making it three dimensionally I thought about the possibility of implementing a stand, which is also its handle.

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.

24 Hours – w/c 11/2/19

After doing a 48 hour project with FabLab, we were then introduced and briefed on our new live project which would only last for 24 hours.  The company which were going to be working with was called BCB International, who specialise in military equipment.  For this brief we also were working with students in their third and second years.

The Brief

The task which we had been presented with was to create a fire lighting aid that could be operated with only the use of one hand.  The aid would need to be able to be used in a range of situations, primarily for survival, e.g. fire lighting.

Generating and Choosing a Concept

Collectively we started to make a list of all the environments in which the aid would be used and then started to ideate ideas on post it notes.  Here we came up with a range of compact solutions.  Eventually we decided on a oval shaped plate which could be attached to a range of areas on the users body via a Velcro strap which could be adjusted.  It also had a mechanism making it so it would be able to be twisted and rotated by 90 degrees depending on its position on the user’s body.  The user would then have to strike the a Ferrocerium rod across the plate to generate sparks, creating an ignition source.

Reflection

As I was working with people who I had not worked with before, I had to recognise where each person’s strength was including my own, so that we could be as efficient as we could be in the time that we had.  Also working with the other years also introduced me to new set of skills.  The short time scale that we were working under meant that I had to adapt and work at a fast pace, rapidly ideating concepts for the aid, and then swiftly moving on to evaluating them and choosing a final concept, doing this helped me to improve my time management skills, as well as replicating a real-world scenario.  Presenting our design to a member of BCB International provided experience of what it would be like in the future to present a product/concept to a company or firm who potentially might want to invest in it, also allowing me to practice speaking in front of a small audience.