TASK 4: DESIGN FOR LIFE

Apart from being very insightful into the mind of a designer, it shows a good depiction of what its like in the industry. Its incredible listening to how Stark goes about criticising and commending the works of the students...very similar to studio class might i add. He points out the most obvious things that you didn't even notice, for example in the first episode how he criticises the products that he thinks are too literal, or lazy, and urges the class to look into products, see their story. This is what makes a true designer.



He has a valid point however... the world is being swarmed by poor design, design that should never be there in the first place. Products that serve such a menial task, pointless in a way. This brings to attention the need to design something that will achieve more, more than just a simple task, and ultimately will be worth more to the consumer thus keeping the product longer. However to achieve this, designers must put more and more effort into design, in a sense scour their brains for every last drop of innovation they can come up with. Obviously, after watching Stark, this is not possible at my level. It will take years and years of practice to achieve this understanding of products that is demanded by top design.

All in all a very entertaining show, it would be interesting to see how an intense few weeks of this would shape an up and coming designer, just as one of the students says, "i am his clay, he can shape me however he wants"

CHARETTE #2 - BREVILLE REDESIGN

So basically the main aim of the redesign was to save money in production and also save the environment through env. friendly processes and materials.

to achieve this we decided one of the largest parts of the mixer was the outer shell which comprised of an inner plastic mould which housed the fixings for the other parts, an outer stainless shell which was purely for looks and weighed quite alot, and the handle which was an injection moulded abs piece. To specifically save money in production the integration of a one piece top half mould made from abs would be beneficial, this removed the need for the stainless and also housed screwless fixings for the rest of the shell to clip to.

This not only reduced the need for lots of different materials but it also brought weight down which impacted on cost and environmental effects through transport and dissassembly.

It turns out that the most environmentally damaging part of the whole unit is the PCB and surrounding components. by integrating and integral button which requires no extra parts and a simple on off switch the need for the PCB is removed and thus environmental impacts decreased.