Product Design Degree

1st Year Project - Design a snowboarder's watch

This module was based on semantics. So you had to design something that you would never had seen before if you had never seen any technology ever. So you look and feel it and it intuitively tells you what it does, where to hold it etc. This is not a course in aesthetic design (as you can see from my buck rogers drill here!), but in using different materials and colours to give meaning. For example on my drill, handles very shaped for holding, chuck grip same colour to imply you also touch that with your hands, agressive shape of unit implies power, giant, sharp rotary drill implies rotating movement, harsh jagged coating of drill boady implies don't touch that. Fun project, especially evo-sticking rock salt to my creation!

Having spent no less than 5 years covering the carpets in Spray Mount, leaving shards of veneer wood around and covering dave's garage & car in a good inch of sawdust from my fab bench sander, I finally graduated with a 2:1 in product Design. below are some of the things we are now struggling to locate in our home....

First project of the course was to choose a market segment and use product design rationale to design a product (shocker) for that segment that would be a success. I choose snowboarder. Materials and colours were reached by analysing that market's clothing and accessories. Shapes (such as the lightening strike zig zag on the metal watch surround) came from images for movement and energy.

1st Year Project - Semantics

This module was concerned with teaching us about light and how it changes materials and objects by shining it on them or through them etc etc. Had to design a light, decided to do one for a lounge bar, so it was big (about 1m square).Had 9 halogen lights in it, with a 3 phase lighting system so you either had the chrome section lit up with light relfecting, or the chrome AND little white tubes for more ambient lighting or the chrome, little white tubes and big coloured tubes for the full effect. Looked fab. Previous projects I had done the tutor would look at the model and say it was obvious I was an engineer as the model had no real curves or organic shapes. I went to town on this one and his comment - in plan view its a grid with circles in it. Nearly threw it at him.

1st Year Project - Lighting

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