Champagne Cooler

The product is an anniversary champagne cooler in which the user can keep track of their wedding anniversaries. For each year of an anniversary there is a symbol to go along with it, for example the 1st year is paper. I have encorporated this idea into my product buy creating 50 badge holes around the cooler. Each badge or anniversary symbol comes with the product and as each anniversary come the user can put the appropriate badge on the cooler. This builds up over the years and shows the progression of ones marriage. The product is slick in its design to allow it to fit in on formal occassions such as special dinners. The cooler is meant to be used all year round not just on anniversaries and can provide a talking point to guests who may be over for dinner viewing the cooler and how many badges are on it.

Reflection: Dream Machines

This video portrayed the importance of the design process and showed the extensive thought and reworking of a concept which in the end can produce a great product. Richard Semore and Dick Powel try to obtain a cutting edge look to their designs as the take ordinary, everyday objects and transform them into desirable machines.

By focusing more on the design process the product at the end will turn out much better. Brainstorming is a fundamental part of this process which enables the designer to have a number of concepts which can be worked on until the desirable design reveals itself. the video enphasises this thought process and the reworking of design concept with traditional and new techniques. In relation to the motobike the precision of concepts is conveyed. By putting pen to paper a designer can get a real feel for what they are designing and can then rework these drawings where appropriate to obtained the deired form.

As seen witht he kitchen appliances, such daily objects have been transformed into desired products with a non traditional colour and form. It shows that it is important to challenge traditional design or what we are used to and redefine them with different forms, materials and colours.

Another fundamental part of the design process is to always refer back to your target market or the client you are designing for. This is important as is keep the designer on track during the concept stage as many ideas may be produced however some may not entirely fit with the clients needs.

As a student of design it has enlightened me to see how important the begining processes of designing are and how an up to date client will lead to a good product also. Top designers will make mistakes however these mistakes become a lesson learned for future designs.

Bad Design

As seen in the pictures below, the drawing table has a fault in its design. as seen in the first two pictures the rulers are lying flat on the table as they are suppose to however they are not using the full extent of the drawing space. When the operator goes to use the full extent of the space the small wheel on the end of the arm, at the bottom of each picture, rolls off the table lifting the rulers off of the table and creating a loud banging noise.

BEFORE (Wheel on the table)

AFTER (Wheel rolled off the table)

To correct this design is quite simply to have a longer arm that is connected to the wheel. this way the full extent of the table can be used in a stable and safe fashion. The longer arm design is shown below.

Floating Knives; Postal Present Knife Block

The Story Of Stuff

Annie Leonard's short film was very insightful to the lifecycle of product which we consume every day. Most people realise that there is a problem with the way consumerism operates however they either choose to ignore it or feel they are doing their bit by recycling. However as Annie Leonard explained recycling will only go so far and while it is good, it will never cure the problems we have with our society that is hell bent on consuming products. I think that one of the biggest take home messages of the video was that designers need to begin to producing products that will last where possible and always to be made out of recycleable materials. At the moment designers are exploiting consumers and the world we live in because products are becoming out dated as quickly as they are designed for the soul purpose of making money. In the future more consumers will wake up to the fact that we are destroying our planet and the money will be made in ideas and products that maintain as sustainable future.

Peeler/Corer

The peeler/corer swivels on a pivet point to provide access to both a peeling blade and coreing shaft. With a two point button lock its handle is comfortable and firm in both operations. For peeling the handle is thing and flat to sit between your knuckles while the bulbous end is a comfortable pushing point when coreing. the target market is for males who think of themselves as a bit of a wizz in the kitchen and feel comfortable around cooking utensils. The peeler/corer brings an enriching experience to men as it is a gadget and becomes much more like a tool then a kitchen utensil. The grip is also quite masculine as it is made for a larger hand grip.

The button lock on either side of the hand holds the utensil firmly in place as it completes either its peeling or coreing taste. this button lock also adds tot he gadget appeal, with the clicking noise also enriching the experience of the male user. The black and white colour scheme was chosen because it has a crisp clean look and fits in with the majority of utensils which many of which also have black as there handles. The handle would have a silicon coating on it to ensure a comfotable and slip free grip, while the corer and blade would be stainless steel and other component plastic, the utensil could be quite harmlessly put in the dishwasher clean for its next use.

Reflection: Paul Bennett

This video is very insightful as to how the smallest of changes to an environment or design can inflict other things on a larger scale. often the simplest ideas are completely over looked because they are just so simple. This conveys that we need to put ourselves, as the designers, into the shoes of the people we are designing for and can therefore obtain simple ideas that would not have been thought of before. For example small changes to the hospital bed and environment around it were driven from somebody experiencing lying in a hospital bed.

This helps to shape me as a designer because it shows that not all ideas have to be complicated to make a difference or to be successful. Some of the simplest ideas in the world are some of our most successful inventions and such simple ideas will always be there however we need to take a step back from complicated ideas to think almost child like again in a world of simplicity.