Week 1 Individualization

Aims of the project?

To show independent research into a diverse range of subjects
Utilize design techniques, appropriate to clients
To explore and use appropriate design techniques
To show experimentation of ideas

Trip to the V&A
The trip to the London V&A museum was to aid our research that  took place over the winter holiday.  The research is the key to this project, I researched into these following headings.

• Minimalism
• Modernism
• abstract
• Digital 

Within all these heading went deeper to find out more, for example Minimalism was the use of colour, purity and form, space and materials. An artist I looked at was Donald Judd- I first came across his work at the Tate Modern.

Exploring the versatility of new materials and the possibilities of shapes and function, Kartell marries Italian design with innovation to communicate its values in tangible form. A strong commitment to ‘image development' has brought Kartell worldwide recognition and relationships with Philippe Starck, Ron Arad, Anna Castelli Ferrieri, Antonio Citterio, Michele De Lucchi, Piero Lissoni and Patricia Urquiola and many more have resulted in numerous awards including the Compasso d'Oro for Philippe Starck's Louis Ghost chair and Bubble Club sofa.

 

Digital Manufacture stood out to me as its the future of technology, its still evolving from this day on-wards, and as a young person growing up and seeing a change in technology is fascinating. The process however is lengthy, the designs are made on the computer or transferred from other media, they are scanned into the 3D printer and does it job.  More recent technology allows the three dimension printing of a complete object.

 Memphis was another design style, that challenged the conventional that products had to follow a certain shape, colour, texture, and patterns.


Alessi was founded in 1921 to produce crafted products in metal for eating and drinking.  Alessi target "conscious customers" meaning the general public, anyone who wishes to spend money on expensive goods. Alessi is a kitchen utensil company, they design everyday plastic and stainless steel.  The design features of this style are
plastic, fun, wide price range, easy to use, innovative, classy, lightweight, humorous and innovative.
A really well know quote from Alberto Alessi- " A true work of design must be able to move people, to convey feelings, to trigger memories, to surprise, to go against the grain". the quote does go on so Iv not put all of it.

The science museum
These two pictures were taken in the science museum we also took a look inside, luckily they had a exhibition on 3D printing, all the objects in the right hand side picture were made using this new type of technology. 










Initial ideas

At first I wasn't sure about what to design so I just sat down and started to draw kettles, but to be honest they all look the same. A friend was saying how her salt and pepper are used daily and break because they are used so frequently. This then made me think of how I could redesign the traditional salt and pepper.



Ideas?

• stainless steel
• squeeze
• can imprint fingerprints
• flexible
• stress ball
• fits to palm of the hand

More Initial Ideas 

Customer Profile 
I created this for my client at the time, a customer profile is everything relating to that person. For example their favorite shops, car they drive, books they read.

How this helps the designer?
By doing one of these the designer can get a bigger picture of the client, many car companies will talk to their client about colours and likes dislikes etc.  This helped me because it told me what style to aim for, modern, retro etc.

What went well ? 
I really tried to get to grips with the functionality of the salt and pepper, I have seen lots of designs where functionality is chucked out the window, and aesthetics take over. But to me that seemed a bit extreme as salt and pepper are objects we  use daily I thought keep it classic.

What went not to well ?
At some points because there are so many existing brands and clever designs its hard to find a gap in the market, its just like the music market and audio, the market is so full therefore challenging. It took me a while to decide upon a design, I actually needed to be more picky and choose one.

What I have learnt?
During initial ideas having loads is not necessarily a bad thing, and that really having too many is good because it gives one more options if one goes wrong.