Forward thinking design

Stumbled across an innovative soap dispenser that really shows the kind of thinking that is needed for my professional project. Designed by Nathalie Stampfli.

"Today, most of the soap we use is liquid soap, which contains a lot of water. Block soap instead is more concentrated and therefore has some ecological benefits: You don’t transport unnecessary water around. In place of plastic bottles you can simply use paper for packaging. The solid blocks can easily be piled and allow a greater space efficiency in a truck."

Professional Project brief

Today, as a class, we have been briefed on our professional project. I have been thinking about this project for quite a while already so already have a few ideas. I am going to keep quiet about these ideas through the early stages of my design development stages. I will also be discussing with my tutors, which idea he feels is stronger and which to go forward with.

We were informed on the importance of relevant research and how to broaden the research into surveys and interviews as apposed to just using the internet for research. I am very very keen to prove myself with this project and am not going to let money or complacency get in the way of achieving a highest possible grade. I will have to go out of my comfort zone and be aggressive with getting outstanding sources and research. 

e-creations workshop

On the 24th and 24th of January 2011, I took part in a live brief workshop with the creative director of e-creations. On the 24th he briefed us on a business idea that he wants to get started. We had to sign an information disclosure saying that we will not steal the idea or pass on the information to any separate parties.

The creative director (Jan-Erik) presented us with his business idea and told us that it was in the very early stages. On the 24th we talked about possible ideas and came up with the URL and website name. For obvious reasons I cannot reveal any information about the website name as it took us a long time to find one we were happy with that wasn't already taken. But eventually we came up with one and then on the 25th we talked about website navigation, layout ideas, hierarchy within the website etc. But we spent most of the day coming up with the branding and identity of the new company. This was the most helpful part of the experience as we got to see first hand the ideas generation process from a creative director and see what he looks for and how they respond to ideas.

Bridging Essay/Poster

Today we were briefed on a project that is running between various courses at the Bournemouth Arts College that is relevant to the theory work we are scheduled to do later in the year. The idea is conference based and is a joint vision between other universities around the country. Design work and theory are commonly kept separate, and as we are design students, the whole idea of this project is to convey our thoughts and discussions of an essay onto an A£ sized poster.

This is an interesting opportunity to show off my skills and knowledge of hierarchy within a poster, how important a typeface is, and how sometimes an image can portray more information than a paragraph of text. We are then either invited to another university with our work, or they are invited here, where our posters will be put up and judged on the most effective or interesting. It is obviously not all about the competition, we are encouraged to talk to other students about our posters and essays and answer any questions that they may have.   

D&AD developments

Me and my partner on this project took on some very helpful feedback today from our tutors. We have been advised not to share too much info about our ideas online due to it being a competition brief so all I will say is that we have moved forward, and from being told our idea was a bit too random, we now have some rationale design portrayals instead.

Be Stupid

For our D&AD brief, we have chosen the illustration brief set by Diesel. They are very open with their re branding strap line 'Be Stupid'.

Images from their website:

These are a few of the posters that they have got portrayed on their website, that me and my D&AD partner are taking into account mostly. We had our first tutorial today about our ideas, I would show our work on here but it is strictly confidential..with it being a competition and all.

History of the internet

clever and attention grabbing info-graphics about the internet. A video I watched during my research of my most recent project.