Rational

My design is aimed at as Mar so eloquently puts it "Yuppies". I have designed a special type of bottle that is used not only to drink from but also to store and hold keys, coins and cards while exercising in the gym. I have decided to do this because it is always a hassle of having to take a bag to place the very small amount of things that you carry to the gym, and then if you don't have a locker, you have to leave it out in the open for anyone to gain access to.

This bottle saves the user the hassle of having to constantly worry about how his/her belongings are. With the new compartment down in the bottom of the bottle the user can always just carry those belongings around the gym with easy and comfort both in body and in mind.

I always tried to keep the bottle the same size as most other types and not be over the top in size thus increasing the ease of usage as the users hand is very easily able to wrap around the bottle and grip it comfortably.

The use of aluminum in the design as the material used it to reflect the life style of my target market, they live a very fast and extravagant lifestyle and this bottle is able to reflect that with its simplicity and elegant design. I have also decided that by creating it out of aluminum it will also encourage the user to hold onto it for longer than just a ordinary plastic bottle.

Yves Bahar: Creating Objects that Tell Stories: www.TED.com

Yves begins his speech by talking about how when he started out in design he was initially instructed to design form the outside only, just tocreate ugly objects into good looking ones. But he says that he did not want to do this, just be a stylist. He started out in another direction by creating his own work, and designing for the human experience and not just to stylise objects.

He explores the design and production of products that are basded on the human experience and values. He sends the message that as designers we need to design for a more positive relationship between humans, products, work, and everything around us. The production of objects that are based on values can be to do with sustainability, environmental issues, low power consumption, function and perhapse beauty.

Yves goes into quite a lot of detail about one of his product designs which is the jawbone, the jawbone is a bluetooth headset thats is designed with beauty in mind. He says that humans put countless of hours and lots of money into how the products that go near their face look, they have to be beautiful, one example he gives of this is the sunglasses that people wear. He then says why do bluetooth headsets have to be ugly, where the design is just to hide the interior. The jawbone is designed to be many things, aesthetically pleasing and tecghnologically sound. The technology inside is able to detect when the user is talking by feeling thier skin move, and when this happens the headset is able to cut outside sound out of the ear piece. But at the sma time one of the big needs is for the overall product to look good, so designers and engineers worked side by side constantly changing designs so that everything worked.

He also talkes about one endevour that is very interesting, it is theOne Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme where Yves was directly involved in the designing of the computer. This was a design directed at the value that all should be open to have an education, and itodays society computers aren one of the main tools for eductation. The computers were given to children in third world countries in africa and mos notably Nigeria and Mongolia (asia). It was designed for kids but was not to be used as a toy. The Design was from the inside out not just slapping on an exterior. He also talkes about how hard it was to try to get the computers manufactured and not have others try and change the design, they stayed to the original designs.

Yves finishes with saying if companies can work with values, then if everyone works together then maybe we can change the world.

Don Norman: Emotional Design. www.TED.com

Don Norman talkes about the idea and concept of emotional design, he says it is the was design reflects how we think about, feel about and perceive a product. He says that the saying 'I don't know what it does, but i want it' is something that comes about because the design is 'beautiful and fun'. Without taking into consideration of a products specifications and faults consumers will want things because of and emotional level of excitement experienced which has derived from the design of the product.

Norman gives the example of the Alessi juicer. As a special edition the juicer was released in a gold plated model and was specifically said not to be used in juicing. The desire to have something that is fun and attractive is an emotional feeling that consumers have and it plays a very large role in the way we purchase things. this video has shown people how alike everyone is in terms of how we all are slaves to our emotional feelings towards products and this is just because we are more attracted to products that look better than others and thus we believe that they will work better. It is the same with negative emotional effects, we are less likely to be drawn to something if it causes anxiety towards us.

He also describes how there are three different levels of emotional design

Visceral - this is the way our responsive system reacts to a design. Our biological design is supposed to be attracted to bright colours, and react to the eg cold=blue or red=hot.

Behavioural - our behavioral level is our subconscious and it does all the work for us. it is the automatic skills and behaviours, eg the ability to breath without having to think about it. in design this area is the experience and pleasure that consumer feels when they are using the product. Also usability and the understanding of the product come into play on the perception of a product.

Reflective -or the 'super ego', this is where we have no control over the brain or muscles. It is our inner voice that is telling us if a product or design is good or bad. this level of reflectiveness shows the interaction and connection between the product and the consumer/user, this includes attracting attention, concerns for the environment and the ability or want to impress other people.

I think all people should watch this video no matter what they do for a living or who they are. the video gives us an insight into how alike we all are in terms of how we see and percieve different products and designs, whether we like them or not, if it makes us excited to just makes us want to put it away. We can better understand our thought processes much better after watching this video, because it gives us a very basic study of ourselves and our minds and see how basic yet complex our thought processes are in terms of how we interact with products and designs.

BUS DRIVER DISPLAY CONSOLE

Product Sketches

In order left to right
Row 1: Worrior Stool, Thinking Ergonomix, Design Awards
Wiggle Chair, Frank Gehry, Inspired
'No. 42', Andrew Simpson & Hugh Worthington, Workshopped
Row 2: Korzina, Karim Rashid, Formfunctionfabulous
Transient, Lisa Gasparotto, Sustain me
Mushroom Floor lamp, Simon Duff, Eat green design

Worrior Stool, Thinking Ergonomix, Design Awards
I chose this stool primarily because of the capabilities that it had in just being made out of foam. But at the same time I liked its fresh but slightly quirky look. The stool doesnt look completely right and i liked that about it.

Wiggle Chair, Frank Gehry, Inspired
I chose the chair simply because I really like the flowing form of the cair right down to the ground. I also really like the way it is made out of cardboard.

'No. 42', Andrew Simpson & Hugh Worthington, Workshopped
I really liked the solid, concrete blockyness of the form. Very strong and solid looking, but the seat looked comfortable. I also really liked the random angles of the arm rests.

Korzina, Karim Rashid, Formfunctionfabulous
I very much liked the form of the piece, the colour and the material used. The piece looked much more finished than the other pieces there and better manufactured.

Transient, Lisa Gasparotto, Sustain me
The randomness and simplicity of just twining wires and connecting lights to it was extremely eye catching and I thought it was very interesting to see how the wires and the lights interacted and how they changed each other.

Mushroom Floor lamp, Simon Duff, Eat green design
I really liked the idea of having a lamp on the floor, and when the light was comming from the underside of the top it gave it a very weird look to it. I thought it looked great and was extremely strikingg amongst the other products

David Kelley: Human Centred Design. www.TED.com

The talk by David Kelley on human centred design gave me a very simple and important message, design is moving away from designing a product and just unveiling it to the world and expecting everyone to use and love it. The talk gave new and current designers a message that humans are becoming the centre of design, how does the product work? How does it interact with the user? How well does it work with the user? Is it user friendly?

Designers and design companies are having to really start to not only design their products but to also create the behaviours and personalities of the products. Designers used to only build 3D models and computer generated images of thier prototypes, but at times develop we are having to spend more and more time on getting their products in working stages as a way of showing the public how the product will be used and what it actually does. Kelley says that internal video production groups have been established to produce 'experience prototypes' that show what the designer wants in terms of how humans interact with the product.

In his talk he then goes on to show some of the work his company IDEO has been involved in over the past year of the talk. All of the examples that he presents are based around human interaction with the product or space that they have produced. One very interesting example is the cubical that they designed to be more human and better for human interaction that the old cubicles in offices that dont provide much in terms of user product interaction or relationship. It is designed to be a space that is much better for humans to work in, and the detail is staggering from fish tanks in the wall, to orange lights that follow the angle of the sun to even a flower that whilts when the worker leaves the cubicle and becomes straight again when they enter again.

Designers and students of design should all listen and take in the points put forward by Kelley as he is explaing to us the way in which design is developing in terms of how machines and products interact with humans and vice versa. It is extremely interesting and his point has really struck home in terms of showing me of how much extra thought and process must be put into the design and production of a product before it is really ready of human interaction. Our design is becoming very human cetred, designers have and must realise now and for the future that the design of a product must work for and around humans and not humans for and around the product.

LINK TO TED WEBSITE
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/david_kelley_on_human_centered_design.html

Task 1, 28th July: Shape Of A Scent

The shape of a scent task was a very interesting and I though enjoyable process of taking the smell of a perfume and then trying to produce the shape of a bottle that represented and reflected that smell, then to take that design and be able to articulate the reasons for your ideas and choices.

When we were first given the scent I was immediately hit by its potency and the very strong feminine and lingering factors of its smell. One of my very first thoughts about it was that it smelt somewhat similar to a pear, which was later reflected in the overall shape of my design. But after further investigation of smelling the scent I was to discover that it had two distinct levels that were obvious to me. The first was a very strong over powering smell one that lingered in the air not evaporating but staying low to the ground and spreading very slowly, to me the shape of it was very bottom heavy, wider at the bottom and very slender at the top. The second of the scents that I was able to smell was one of an underlying and very faint spice, one that tingled the nostrils and was quite hard to recognise as it was very well hidden by the much stronger curtain.

We attributed some ideas to the smell, they being sophisticated, comforting, mature, elegant and relaxing. These were what I tried to base my design on and I think I was able to accomplish this by designing a vessel that had a textured sphere protected by three posts that wrapped around the sphere. I did this to represent and reflect the scents protected spice by the much stronger smell that stayed in the air as the delicate inner scent disappeared.

All in all I thought the exercise was a very productive and interesting one and really pushed us to try and unerstand something that we could not see, hear or touch but only smell, and then to take what we understood and discovered about the scent and to make a vessel that we would put forward as a product. I also found the articulating of my ideas reaaly gave me a confidence boost in terms of speaking about my ideas and taking a strong stance on what I wanted to achieve and produce.




The first three attempts in getting the design right for the vessel.



The final design that was presented to Mar.