a new project!!!

i have now began a new project prior to next semester to get a head start within research. the new project is part of the D&AD competion this year so the brief has been set around this. there were three briefs to pick from, i would tell more about them but its irrelevant. The brief that i finally decided upon is to 'present an idea which promotes HP workstations ability to bring to life anything the creative mind can concieve'
the reason that i had choosen this brief was because it was one where i could enjoy, have fun and be as creative as i want with no restrictions. so basically what i think the brief is suggeting is to restyle HP products so that they appear more creative to creative people. how exciting, i cant wait to go back and let my creative mind run free, but now is a nice time to have a festive break (although there is still plenty of things i could be doing, like reading)

its that time of year again.....and i dont mean christmas

so thats yet another semester over, where have all the years gone. but anyway, the time has come to make some more cultural probes for our next project, the D&AD international competition.

this time I have decided to take a step back from the probes i did the last time as they weren't very successful. so now i'm just focusing on one thing in my probe which is self explanatory and will allow the participant to have fun and be expressive, see the image above.

the disposable camera and all other cleverly designed tasks have been left behind. I personally dont feel that probes work for me as a research method. they have to be just right to work for everyone. whats the point in having all these clever tasks for people to do when they might not do what you intended they would and end up being returned uncompleted. so thats why i jujst focused on one thing whioch hopefully people will understand and enjoy doing.

The Survelo Ring!!!!

so here it is, a prototype of what my Survelo Ring would look like!

This is my idea which i presented to NCR as part of a live project which is also run with Gray's School of Art (Aberdeen). The brief for this project was to design a selfish self service.
I managed to get down to the final sixteen of the competition where I presented my idea through a one minute presentation. These are the boards which I used to sell my concept.
This was my final presentation board which includes all the information about my concept and the theory behind it.
And this is my background board which shows the process I went through to get to my final idea and all the research throughout the project.

So after trying very hard to sell my idea, I made it no further in the competition. i don't think the judges were too keen on it as it was not as selfish as they had expected. I felt it was selfish to me but i think i failed to get this point across.
The winner of the competition was from Aberdeen. What I had noticed about the differences between the two uni's work was that IPD had challanged the brief a bit more and had more fun and playful ideas, whereas Gray's ideas were all safe and fitted into industry well.
This was a great experience to be part of and i'm glad of what i've done for it. I should really thank Jon for giving me the opportunity to present to NCR as i never thought that i was gonna get the chance!!!

3D wall coverings!

http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/11/12/3d-wall-coverings-is-the-cost-worth-the-payout/

a friend saw this posted on a website and thought of me, i think it had to do with my bubble wrap wall paper idea.

what these are, are 3D wall tiles designed by jaime salm which add texture to your wall. but because they are tiles you can create your own pattern/shapes and also paint them in any colour you want.
apparently you can attach them temporarily so that you can change them about when you get bored or attach them permanently.
another great thing about them is they are made from recycled waste paper and when your finished with them they can be recycled. how clever is that.

this is something i would have in my home, its fun, random, quirky and also sustainable.
i want it!!!!!

it got me thinking about my bubble wrap idea and how i've had to dismiss it for my current project. i'm thinking of just leaving it aside and developing it in my own time or revisiting the idea in a later project or in fourth year.
but rather than just thinking of it like that i think i would look into 3D wall coverings.

stick men!!!

are stick men right or wrong???

down to 1 idea!!!

another successful day for me in the ipd studio this week.
after presenting 3 of my ideas to guest lecturers anab jain and bill gaver i have narrowed my 100 ideas down to one which will be used for my NCR project brief. it was quite daunting having to sell my ideas to these people because they've had so much experience within the design industry that i was expecting to be shot down.
gladly i wasn't!!!
2 of my ideas stood out to them but the managed to choose one which was more suited to the NCR brief. what i liked about anab jain was that she managed to put not only my ideas but everyone elses into context. now i'm looking forward to developing my idea to put into context and coming up with a narrative for it.
anab also took pictures of my sketches which must mean i'm doing something right and that filled me with so much motivation for the rest of the project.

dissertation...... soon to be under way!!!

finally, i have a clearer idea of what to do for my dissertation.

after having a workshop today with prof tom inns, in mono! i have got round to picking a subject and a potential question.

the general topic that i will be researching is sustainable consumerism and my potential question is 'how has consumerism changed globally in the last century, where is it going, and how can we consume more sustainably?'

this is just an idea at the moment and will probably change slightly during the initial research stage but i'm fairly confident about starting my dissertation now.

idea babies!

yesterday was another fun and creative day in the IPD studios. we were making idea babies!!!!
as strange as this sounds it was a great way to get strange and new ideas but also a good way of getting to know the fourth years.
what we were doing was a bit of speed dating with the ideas. the main intention of this was to go around the 4th years and share your ideas with them in the space of 8minutes. within this time we came up with new ideas, or idea babies!!
this was useful for me because it helped me rationalize between my ideas for the afternoon session.
in the afternoon, we had to narrow our 100 ideas down to 20 and then cluster them into 4 different groups. this was quite tricky because there were so many ideas but i got there eventually.
for next week we now have to choose 1 idea from each cluster, i.e narrow down to four.
so, to sum up i've went from 130 ideas down to 20 and now down to 4 which will soon become 1. i can't wait!!!

ideas and insights

this is the board which i put together which documents my information recieved back from my porbes. what i have tried to portray with this is how my insights were reached. each line shows the results from a different person.
i'm hoping its self explanatory and thats why i've not included any text, except the title ofcourse.

100 ideas! done!

the lecturers were right, it's not that difficult once you get started.
after having the task of coming up with 100 ideas for a couple of weeks i finally got there. as stressful and time consuming it was i actually quite enjoyed it.
it was fun just letting your mind loose and coming up with crazy insane ideas, even if they aren't possible. maybe thats why i'm still coming up with more. i have 103 at the moment and hopefully will have more to add.