disassemble

Video reflection B

An Inconvenient Truth

The video “An Inconvenient Truth” is a video that not just industrial designer should be watching, everyone living on Earth should be watching it. As we are all part of the world, and Industrial designer in particular, are people that must watch these video, because industrial designer are people who need to think ahead of other people, and design products that suits people’s need. However, after watching “An Inconvenient Truth” I got a few very important messages from it.

One of the messages I get from the video is that Earth is already at a stage of urgency, where human are destroying the world by having all the factory producing Carbon Dioxide and toxic Carbon Monoxide. And the global warming pollution creates an layer that thickens the Earth’s atmosphere, trapping the heat within Earth, hence fasten the melting down of South Pole and North Pole, which can ultimately lead to extinction of all living creature on Earth. Human do not own the Earth, but yet, what we are doing are destroying the Earth and threatening the entire living creatures on Earth.

Therefore, as industrial designers, we are also responsible for the Earth, industrial designers are not just people that make things beautiful anymore, and we also got to consider the Earth environment. While we are designing products, we should not be just considering the ecstatic part of design as major part, but we might take in consideration of the material choice, and the amount of material we use. Is the material suitable? Is there a better material? How much material is needed? Can we minimise the material needed? These are one of the first things we need to consider while designing products.

Also, since materials are limited on Earth, we should consider recycled material, using recycled material to reduce the amount of extracting needed. However, sometimes recycled material quality might be very poor, and industrial designer’s new challenge is to use the recycled material at its best performance. And the best solution would be able to make the product designed to be recyclable, or reusable.

We all live on Earth, and according to “An Inconvenient Truth” the pollution of the trend in the next 50 years appears to be very scary, and we would need to stop that from happening. And to do that, we need to stop the pollution, and one big problem with the pollution is designing, if we can figure out a way to solve this issue, it would only benefit the world.

Video reflection A

How it is made

There are six episodes of packaging, showing different types of packaging processes. It is very important for industrial designers, because packaging is a very important part of design process. It is when the customers will actually decide if they are going to purchase the product. Therefore, packaging design is as important as the product itself, and there is no point in designing something on computer, and do not know how the packaging are made, we can design an amazing look package with computer software, but we would not be able to control the real product production, which is why it is important to view these videos and understand how the packaging are made, and that is how we design.

There are many things that I discovered and learnt in these videos, which can help me in my future design, as these are videos of how the real world works, and it is more convincing then listening to just theory, because personally, I can gain more from viewing than listening without an image showing me what it is like. As mentioned in the video of how cardboard boxes were made, it was designed purely by accident. Nothing is formed by accidents, but ideas can be formed by anything. And these videos showed me a few very important points. Even as simple as a cardboard box, and a juice pack, there are many process involves, for example, a juice box includes many layers, and each layers contain their own use, and it is not just for designing purposes, and there are many things needed to be considered, such as food safety for food container, and strength for cardboard boxes.

Another important point I get from the videos are that packaging are made in mass production, not many process are made by man. Most of the processes are made by machines, and the speed of the process is simply what amazed me. Especially the process of making tubes, the video showed the actual speed of how they were made, and the speed is just too fast for my eyes to even catch up.

Also, when designing packaging, we need to consider the recycling part, because looking at the recycling part of the video, many waste just goes into land field. And some of them will produce toxic gas. As the world is really having trouble with global warming issues, I realize it is very important to design things green, and look after our Earth more. The production of the containers such as plastic bottles involves recycled PET, and it is one of the ways of how we can help.

In conclusion, due to the amount of word limits, I am not able to express everything I want, but there are many things I learnt from the videos, and messages to take home. The packaging is mass produced, and they are extremely fast. It is also important to think about the recycling part of packaging while we are designing.

Giving packaging a new life

There are seven episodes on giving packaging a new life, these videos show the importance of recycling and how recycling can extend the lifespan of a material, and it is important for industrial designers to understand and put these videos in mind when designing packages. Because as the world is short on resources, it is important that we make packaging as recyclable as we can.

I was amazed by the recycling process of tetrapak, because parts of the process are used to recycled for use of cements. And it is hard to imagine that a soft paper packaging juice box, can turn into a powder form that will eventually become such a hard surface material. And it is a very smart and handy machine they have to separate the material due to the material properties, and weight.

In the last few years, recycling has been very successful in Germany, but I personally still reckon that there are a lot of things we can still do to make things work better. Because I still see that there are a lot of process and energy being consumed during the process of recycling, and it is not a very good sign, because more energy used in the process means there are going to be money involved. And if it costs too much to recycle materials, not many people are going to be willing to do it.

Therefore, I realise it is needed for the industrial designers to design packages in a way where the package is designed green, and in a form where recycling does not take a long process, or possibly be reused, which does not require any machines and energy. What I mean is for example, a container to be used after the initial purpose of the packaging, and then used for other things, such as containing other things, or be used for other purposes.

From the videos, I understand the importance of recycling, and how not all material are at the end of its lifecycle even if the consumer is done with it. There is a lot more we need to consider other than just the look of the packaging.

Universal Design

Australian Design Awards 2011

Description and Principal Function

The design for the new Inspiron laptops began with consumer insight based on research through which consumer needs, desires, and pain-points were explored and understood by the development team and resulted in a thoughtful, new design language implemented across the new laptop series. The Inspiron 15R in particular was designed for family needs and features thoughtful, innovative design elements such as the Switch lid covers, cable/connector layout, hinge design, speaker placement, and buttons/controls layout. The Inspiron 15R features a 15.6-inch widescreen HD display, 2nd generation Intel Core processors, and up to 13 hours of life with the optional 19-cell battery.

Optional, switchable display lids
Inspiron R Laptops feature the ability to personalize your Laptop with contemporary, original artwork replacement lids exclusively designed to reflect your personality. Customers choose from among 20+ optional lids through the interactive Design Studio website. To change a lid, just press the single button on the lid, slide and lift and you are ready to remove and replace the lid. With this design, the development team was able to move the ability to personalize the laptop from the initial manufacturing to aftermarket which helped reduce manufacturing and logistics complexity while providing customers with even more flexibility to personalize their laptop.

Cable/Connector layout
The design composition of the Inspiron 15R form factor is a result of many elements coming together, all beginning with customer input. The ability to personalize the lids—repeatedly, sound output quality, controls design, and how the laptop connects, all contributed to the overall design composition. In particular, the cable and connector layout was based on investigation and understanding of how families would use the laptop so the less moveable, and heavy cable connections and the security lock feature were place on the rear, USB ports on all sides, and media inputs on the thinner, forward sides for better accessibility.

Hinge-forward industrial design
The Inspiron R Laptops feature a hinge-forward design with the elegant barrel hinge details on the top of the base and behind the keyboard which keeps the hinges protected from damage and cleaner looking visually. Because the overall laptop design composition considered the cable layout concurrently, the hinge-forward design allowed for all of the larger cables to be placed on the rear without any interference from the opening hinges and lid. The hinge-forward design creates a smaller footprint for the laptop which makes it more stable and much easier to open in constrained spaces like small café tables or airplanes.

Speaker design and placement
The Inspiron 15R form factor is a complete composition, top and bottom. The bottom surface and speakers of the laptop received the same degree of design attention as the rest of the laptop. In particular, the bottom surface towards the front of the laptop gently sweeps upward, in an “uplift” creating a thinner side profile and an ideal location for the two speakers. Customer input revealed how important good a sound experience was for a family laptop so the speakers were positioned to reflect and distribute the sound off of the user’s surface to create a more enhanced sound experience.

Buttons and controls layout
The Inspiron 15R button design and controls layout benefited from considerable customer research and feedback. From the simple, one-button control for easy lid removal to the re-conceived 3 button control center, the buttons and controls were essentially designed by the customers to meet their needs and give them more control of the PC functions. The new 3-button control center features, Windows Mobility Center, Dell Support Center, and Display on/off buttons. These are high-level function buttons that provide quick access to many sub-level functions such as the brightness, volume, battery status, wireless network, etc. controls via the Windows Mobility Center button.

Pros
It allows the user to customize their own laptop, and make it only the user's, so everyone can have their own customized laptop and make them stand out and express what kind of person they are from the way they customized their laptop

Cons
I am concern that the customized piece might be easy to break and how to install can be a new thing to learn, and it required pressure to install and if the user apply too much pressure, it can break the piece. Also, how to store the pieces might not be space efficient.

Improvements
I would improve the design by making the cover an LED screen, so that the user can customize their laptop without having to take the cover off.

Project 2: Six Can Beverage Pack

Brief: C – Six Can Beverage Pack
Product Name: IMPACT
Product: 250mL 6 can energy drink pack
Theme: Strong, tough, prison break
Special Feature: Opens from front by breaking open the bars

Brief C challenge is to design a six can beverage pack, in which I choose to design a beverage pack for 250mL 6 can energy drink. Researches were done on currently existing packages, including energy drinks and alcoholic drinks. The researches have shown the current 6 pack packages focus on the graphics design instead of the package and the way they are putted together. The current design of energy drinks are mostly in box shapes with all sides covered to maximize the graphics that can be placed on the package, or a sheet of cardboard folded to form a top, front, bottom, and back cover, which can minimize the amount of material required for the package.

The design of “IMPACT” energy drinks focus on the package as well as the graphics, the target audiences of “IMPACT” are teenagers to mature male who admire strong and toughness, having a behind bars feeling to it. Which is the reason the design of the package are based according to prisons.

The design “IMPACT” package is a locked up cell with only one side reveling what is inside, which is the same principle of prison, having 3 sides of walls, and one side with bars locking up the prisoners. Therefore the only way user can gain access to the energy drink is to break open the bars, which is what the design purposely done for. The users are required to rip open the bars to get the drinks.

As for the graphics of the design, it uses the very basic color of black and white, and it does not consist of many unnecessary graphics, which fits the environment of a prison where there isn’t much color and entertainment to it. However, the graphics used are very explosive, almost giving the users a big bang strong feeling.

The cost of manufacturing this package will be the same as any other 6 pack packaging, because the surface area required for the package is the box design of other energy drinks, and since they are rectangular shape, they can be stacked together, which can be easily transported.

Project 1: Sheet Material

Sheet Material: Clear acrylic sheets
Target Market: Modern family
Object: Fruit Bowl
Name of product: Skyfruit Bowl
Cost of manufacturing: $ 28.95

The concept of the fruit bowl came from an ordinary “Powerade” bottle where it got handgrip for its user to handle the bottle, it was a very comfortable design, which I looked at more bottles with these kind of design. And I was looking at the design of the bottles and start converting it as the basic idea of the design, which I realize the shape of the handgrip is similar to a skeleton shape, and skeleton shape has become my direction of the design.

After knowing that is the direction of my design, I did further research on skeleton styles and cultures, and by researching, most of the skeleton style culture came from Ancient Egypt, and the first inspiration came from mummy, it gave me the idea of using strips to go around an objects. One of the Egyptian objects I researched is the fireplace bowl, it used strips of metal to hold the fire together, the negative spaces it created allows the lights from fire go through, increasing the brightness of it, which I would like the idea of using negative spaces to my design, as it can visually look lighter.

As I research more on Egyptian container styles, the torch designs really caught my attention, and I shifted my focus of research from Egyptian to different cultures of torch, and came up with the ancient Roman time, which I also found the torches are designed to have negative spaces to create greater brightness. So I design concept sketches based on the ideas from the researches, and designed a series of rings as the container base.

Now coming to joining the rings together, I did further researches on ancient containers, which I particularly focused on the Chinese cultures, because I got attracted by the design and the strong feeling the Chinese design has given me. Most of the designs have the elements of Chinese dragon, and I would like to add it to my design. And I realize the dragon might be too aggressive for a family, so I have smoothen my design and came out with the final product.