Project One: Experience Enrichment

THE "CHAP"STICK

Guys, have you ever been on public transport or in an expensive restaurant and notice that your lips are starting to get dry? And that the only solution is to apply some chapstick on your lips as if your applying some lipstick on your lips? I know we've all been there and done it and for decades the only solution to this problem was to create chapsticks that were "labelled" to be for men. But the problem was that they still looked the same as normal chapsticks and you still had to apply it as it were a lipstick! So of course guys don't want that feminine image to be brought upon themselves and therefore, my aim for this project was to design a new kind of chapstick that would be made just for men!


It wasn't an easy task to do since I had to research on various issues such as male hand gestures, different kinds of lips of different cultures, existing chapsticks, and so on. But once I had finished analyzing my research, I was able to come up with a final design that hopes to make the existing chapstick into a more 'manly' one. This had been succeeded by designing the chapstick to have a curved shaped so that they way in which the user uses the chapstick is horizontally towards the lips. Preety hard to picture aye? Well just think of when a rugby player places a mouth guard into their mouths. Yes just like that so the outer layer of the chapstick was designed to have a similar shape to a normal mouth guard but instead making it more simple by just having a nice curve shape. Also, the use of the colour which was black, silver and gold, further highlights the bold and masculine look of the chapstick. But what's different with the function of this chapstick is that the actual chapstick which is applied to the lips, is in liquid form which means that the user has to press the front part of the chapstick in order for the liquid to come out.


This chapstick is aimed for men of all ages as it hopes to give pleasure to men as it helps give them more confidence of applying a chapstick without feeling feminine anymore. It will also create a talking point with their guy friends as the design of this chapstick is totally different from the standard existing chapsticks and that it is a lot more 'manly'.

As for the materials that it would be made out of, well the main focus of my research was to find materials that were all eco-friendly ie, recyclable. So as I researched different kinds of plastics, i narrowed it down to the most efficient and recyclable which were HDPE and PVC as they are the most common forms of plastics that are recyclable. The other material i researched for was rubber. Rubber is a very complex material to recycle so there wasn't much that i could find except for rubber mulch. Rubber mulch is 100% recycled from car tires and is used for padding in children playgrounds. This means that this type of material would be very efficient as it is shock proof and very durable.

Therefore, I really hope that the design of the "Chap"stick really helps all men feel more confident about themselves as they apply it throughout their everyday lives.

Yves Behar: Creating objects that tell stories

Ok now seriously, my opinion of this video is that the designer Yves Behar talks about too many irrelevant things during this video. He firstly talks about what he should really be talking about throughout the entire video which is "creating objects that tell stories" but this only goes on for about 2-3 minutes. He then switches topic and starts talking about what he made back when he was still a teenager which completely goes off the main topic already. So for the next couple of minutes he just starts talking about products that he had been designing for companies.

Only after the second half of the video does he actually start to kind of get back on the topic but instead of talking about objects that tell stories, it becomes "creating objects that come from values". It starts from the organic drink bottle product which turns into a game, to the free laptop for each child in developing countries, and then lastly to the free condom machines in NYC. These all bring about values of environment and humanitarian aid to the human society but stil not too sure about each product being able to tell stories.

Furthermore, I'm not sure if industrial designers will learn much from this video other than keeping values when designing, because even if there are iconic products in this, I'm not too sure what kind of stories they would be able to tell once obtained.

Don Norman - Emotional Design

Have you ever dreamed of owning and driving those classic sport cars or putting on those expensive "Rolex" watches? Well I'm sure mostly everyone has once in their lifetimes or maybe even throughout their whole lifetimes, but do you actual realise why you envy to have those treasured items? Well in this video, Don Norman explains to us how there are three aspects in which makes up the "emotional design" that becomes a part of our lives everytime we purchase a new product. These three aspects are visceral, behavioural, and reflective design.

Through this video, I've learned that those three aspects of "emotional design" each correlate with each other as a way of making it a criteria. This is because if we're not happy with the visceral aspects of a product, we move onto the behavioural aspect of the design and if that fails the criteria too, it just leads to the last aspect of reflective design.

Therefore it is in this video that i've mainly learnt that we as humans choose to purchase products based on our likes and dislikes and bluntly in which whether or not the product looks good or not. So this video would be a very good resource for industrial designers as it tells them that what users want in a product isn't always initially of what the product can do but instead, of how appealing it is to them and to others around them.

Picture obtained from: -http://www.jnd.org/don%20norman%20DWELL%20faucet%20expert.jpg

Youtube link: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlQEoJaLQRA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fides1031-2009.blogspot.com%2F2009_07_01_archive.html&feature=player_embedded#t=705

GOOD DESIGN TASK

My thoughts on this award-winning product? Well overall this research machine device is a preety innovative product as it helps solve crime scenes and help scientists with researching various substances and materials that are new to them. So yeah this product is quite a useful product to use and in terms of its design and look....it is quite appealing as it fits with the whole scientific look concept that in which its target market who are mainly researchers, can associate with its design concept.

Overall, I have learned a couple of things about design during this task such as the various design principles and elements in which before I haven't really learned much about or maybe just forgotten XD. Plus I haven't used photoshop for a couple of years now so its good that I started to use it again as it will help me in future assignments tasks.

Have you ever walked into a clothing shop and wondered how the clothes you pick would actually look on someone? Or have you ever had the desire to turn your working office into a space that you would actually enjoy going to each day? Well famed industrial designer David Kelley has been able to provide humans with solutions to just some of those everyday dilemmas we experience everyday. He does this through his focus on "human - centred" design which puts emphasis on human behaviours and emotions and intertwines these concepts with his designs when designing new products.

So one of the first innovations that is shown in the video is of the new and creative innovative technologies that have been incorporated into the Prada clothing shop in New York. The technology that is incoporated in the shop allows the customers to have a more thorough look at what they are browsing for example, the staff device allows customers to take a look at what clothes they are interested in purchasing by displaying what they look like on models on the runway. The "magic mirror" technology is also a smart and innovative technology which solves a long time problem for customers in the past since back in the old days, you wern't able to see what you looked like with the clothes you were trying on, therefore this innovation solves the problem by having a 3 second delay to give the customer maximum satisfaction on deciding what to get and not to get.

The next "human - centred" innovation is seen in the London Science Museum where it shows a digitally interactive wall that is visually mesmerizing but also incorporates the human emotion aspect with the design. This had been done as words come start to appear in a straight moving line across different directions on the wall, each displaying a different feedback from its various visitors. This innovation not only helps the museum obtain feedback, but it also reflects on future visitors as it provides them anonymous feedback from their fellow peers.

Now for decades, the office cubicle has been a workplace that has shown to create major boredom and lifeless emotions as everyday is a repetitive cycle with countless reports and documents being read and filled out in that tiny space called WORK. So in this video, it shows how a normal company office had undergone a dramatic make-over of its office cubicles. Each worker had been asked to design their own space of what they would like their space to look like. Through this process, human emotions and behavious had been incoporated into objects such as walls and both living and non-living objects to give each object a human-like behaviour. This idea not only makes the office workplace a more enjoyable place to work in, but it also captivates the emotions and feelings of the workers as they are able to express their inner desires and opinions through products.

Therefore, this video would be important for industrial designers as it assesses and analysizes how the aesthetics and looks of designing products aren't always what the consumer market are drawn to these days in the 21st century, since human based emotions and behaviors play a more vital part in solving everyday situations when considered more while developing and designing new and innovative products.

Picture obtained from: - http://www.experientia.com/blog/ideos-david-kelley-wins-edison-award-for-innovation/

Youtube link: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXndL3TNCmo&eurl