3DD- Project Five

For this project, every student was given a different thing to design. I got given a cruet set, which basically consists of salt and pepper shakers and sometimes vinegar and olive oil bottles. The way I approached this was by first thinking of the problems I have with the existing ones and what can I do to solve them. For instance, I always get confused with which is salt and which is pepper and also, I can never control the amount of olive oil I want to put in my food. After that,I decided to aim my product towards young adults who go camping or for picnics. Since it would be for an outdoor context, I had to chose a material which would be appropriate. I started researching materials and came across moulded PVC and I though it would be the most suitable thing to use. It is flexible and durable, therefore people could just throw the products in their backpack and they wouldn't break. In addition, its is inexpensive to produce, therefore young adults, who don't want to spend that much money, could afford it. Since I usually can't which is salt and which pepper, I thought I could make each container completely different from the other so people won't get confused with which is which. My idea, was for the containers to be the shape of the thing they contain. For example, the bottle for the olive oil will be in the shape of an olive, the pepper shaker will be in the shape of a peppercorn etc. Therefore, I took the organic forms of olives, grapes, peppercorns and salt flakes and simplified them. 

In order to save the problem of not being able to control how much olive oil you put in your food, I through it would be a good idea to have spay bottle containers for both olive oil and vinegar. I was intending to do prototypes of my products using the vacuum molding machine however, since I did not manage my time wisely, I did not have enough time to do that. Therefore, I decided to create my prototypes using a different color of play-dough for each one. I think that the thought of process I used, helped me to solve some of the problems with existing cruet sets, as well as to create something suitable for type of people it was aimed for.  Even though at first I found it challenging to start and find an idea, by the end I was very happy with the outcome of this project.

3DD- Project Four

For this project, each student was given a "client", which was one of our classmates, and we had to design something for them. Each client completed a questionnaire, where they had to choose what they prefer for instance, autumn/summer/winter/spring. After that, we had to chose some of the words and research pictures that remind us of it. The words I picked were summer, wood and abstract. For my final product, which would be a double-seat deck chair, I decided that I wanted to incorporate an element from each one of the words. Firstly, it would be made out of wood, therefore I researched into suitable woods for outdoors and I decided that it would be made out of monkey pod wood. The reason I chose this specific one is for its light color and the interesting 'water' patterns it has. I chose to reflect the word summer through the net which would be placed where the people can sit. The reason behind this is because nets remind me of sail boats, the sea,fishing and are also comfortable to sit on. Finally, I thought I could reflect abstract by having a colored net, instead of a basic white one, which would be inspired by the colors of sea corals and blue for the sea. Even though I like my idea of a double seated deck chair, if I were to do this project again I would have done some things differently. For instance, I would have researched a bit more into the words my client chose so that I could have had more material to work and experiment with. In addition, I think my design is quite simple and not abstract. Instead of just having a colored net, I could have also experimented with the shape of the structure, in order to create something more unique. I did not really enjoy this project however, it has made me realize that when you work with a client, you have to take their likes into consideration first, so that you can present to them a product that they will want to buy.