INDN 211: Investigative Market Research

Having decided on exactly what the project is going to be about and how it's going to work, model making is key to moving forward here. To find a form that worked, I started off with some clay models, establishing a comfortable hold for a sizable pen. The actual size of the first level of pen makes it really easy to hold. 

The combination of the raised segments and the dipped parts of the pens make this pen a breeze to hold, and the fingers practically stay there of their own accord, so it's a perfect first place to start. The raised sections in the level are very prominent, but they, like the dipped sections, will decrease with level.

The second level will see the plastic sections slowly receding, resulting in a more streamlined approach to the form. The chunkiness is definitely still there, resulting in a part-one-part-another form that sits between the main form approaches of the pens.

Here the pen is reducing in girth significantly, and all the components are receding, ensuring the user is slowly moving towards a point where these pens are no longer necessary. The pens are teachers and tools in one. Eventually they are designed to give way to a normal tool, which is what the user is really aiming for.

This pen sits on the border of the kit and the real world. This pen will be the boundary tool, the one from which the user has to make the step away into the "real world". Here, they graduate to a normal pen, and return themselves the freedom of being able to write anywhere with anything.

One of the suggestions by my tutor was to talk to my grandparents regarding the pen design. Both in their 80's, they are a little beyond my target persona in age, but much of the aspects that define my persona are inherent in their personalities too. The desire for independence and want for freedom, while refusing to want to rely on others is a strong element in their personae.

Ultimately my project is about equality and equal opportunity for all. I want to give people the opportunity to succeed, and my product wants to facilitate this and make it as easy at it could possibly be without sending them to a clinic.

My grandparents really liked the form of the model. They felt like it was easy to hold, and would make a good set of pens to work your way up. They did very much like the way the pen had a raised segment as well as a deep section for the pen to sit on your fingers with ease.

One of the issues that they raised though was the possibility of a longer stem, so that there was more support for the back of the hand. An idea that my tutor suggested that would completely encourage the user to wean themselves off the pens would be to make the pens not pens, but rather make them paintbrushes, which would allow for consistent learning, while at the same time ensuring that the user takes the final step.

Another idea that was tossed around was the idea of a kit that could be dissembled as well as customised. This could involve making the different handles separate pieces, as well as making the stem into its own independent piece which could be attached to the various segments.

A suggestion from my grandparents was also to possibly add weights to the back of the pens, as the pens could possibly be rather heavy, and balancing them at the back would give the pens more lift, as well as ensuring the balance of the pen was ideal for the task at hand.

My grandparents had a lot of good ideas, and this means that I'll have a lot to work with, which is great. Making sure that the idea works with the clientele is really important, as I've now discovered. Definitely something to consider for the next projects in the future.

INDN 252: Render! Render!

Now that I have all my rings, I'm able to make a collective render. Assembling the rings, I wanted to really show which one is my ideal fit, while at the same time giving them the materials I wanted to give them if it were possible. So I decided to go all out.

Assembling the rings, I wanted to make it seem like they were all just lying there, as if it were a product shot, but not completely separate so that they have no relation, but as if they were part of a set and properly lying together, as well as leaning on each other.

Ideal materials I'd put on my rings if possible would be silver and sapphire for the perfect ring, silver and red leather for the large fit ring, and white ceramic and black rubber for the small fit one. I chucked on all these materials in the render, and, well, I'll just let the render do the talking, shall I?

INDN 211: Identifying Resultant Problem aaaaaand Sketching Bonanza!

So, with a persona nailed down to the plywood of my project, refining the project itself down to a workable, exciting form was going to be a hard task. One of the elements that I've decided is going to be tricky for this project is the fact that I want my project to be reasonably attractive aesthetically.

Creating a piece that should be extremely functional as well as pretty isn't going to be the easiest of tasks, but  it should definitely be within the realms of possibility. The idea is to create something that really supports the users efforts to re-acquire their skill, while doing that task very discreetly and conscientiously.

One of the most important elements of learning to write is to understand and control how to hold the pen. Now, after a stroke or severe injury, this muscle memory can be very difficult to re-acquire. A lot of pens have rubber grips on them nowadays, however, none of these pens really support the finger beyond the surface friction of the rubber band.

What I want to create is something that gives true support for the fingers and encourages the muscles to retain the memory of the placement of the fingers.

An idea that came to me while talking to my tutor was that rather than making a single supportive pen, what might be best would be a rehabilitative "kit" of sorts, where the user starts off with the easiest pen grip, graduating up the levels of pen, until the final level is essentially almost the same difficulty as a normal pen, encouraging the user to "graduate" to a real pen.

This idea of a complete process is far superior and could be vastly expanded on to create an isolated kit.

One of the things that I realised is that the pen isn't something that will fit everyone. People's hand sizes are different, as well as there being a problem of right-handed versus left-handed people. As a result, I really needed to choose a specific persona and then stick with that persona.

This design isn't one that will suit everyone. For it to be usable, there would have to be a complete, different set. Possibly a Small, Medium, and Large for right handed people, and then a Small, Medium, and Large for left-handed people. 6 different sets wouldn't be an outrageous production, but for this project I'll focus on just the one.

Now that the project and persona are refined, I can start making some models and mock-ups of the form. This process will help me refine the design significantly, and will reveal aspects of it that I hadn't considered before.

Sebastien out.

INDN 252: Developing The One Ring

For me final ring, one of the things I really want to focus on is this idea of a generated structure. I didn't want to make huge amounts of work for myself and try to create something akin to a crystalline structure. This fact I realised after making the model below. While it is a very interesting form, I't versy much driven by an aesthetic and doesn't really show what I'm trying to achieve. I like it for some reasons, but then there are serious flaws with it as a whole.

The idea that I really want to capture with this ring is the idea of the precious element of the ring being hidden from the public. The precious crystalline structure is on the inside of the ring, where you aren't going to see it unless you are on a certain degree of familiarity with the person who wears it. This idea of the hidden crystal clinging onto the finger is what I was really trying to capture.

So, I did some explorations of the kinds of forms that I would want to see in my form. Not knowing where to start, I decided to work from something I knew and understood (at least to a certain degree), namely Blender. I decided that a way I could possibly achieve the effect I was going for would be to simulate interesting liquid dynamics with the resolution of the form turned all the way down, so as to encourage extreme tessellation and crazy forms.

I started out with a ring of water, and then created a point of gravity at the middle, so that the water would all gravitate explosively towards the centre. This went through many, many iterations and formations and alterations of parameters, but eventually I created something that worked in the way I wanted it to.

In this image, you can see the tessellation on the inside really nicely. It was rather messy getting it to this stage, but ultimately I ended up with something that looked like something. Which I'm proud of.

After violently exploding several litres of water, I arrived at a ring formation of water that was explosively erratic enough while still creating some workable forms. Once I had the baseline form, I then stepped in with the sculpting tools and took to the ring, making some of the peaks a little more powerful, while subduing some others that were a little bit over the top.

Here you can see the form with all the edges highlighted. This really shows off the idea that I'm going for a lot more. Most of the form on the outside is going to get chopped off, the only important parts are on the inside of the form.

The idea that I'm pursuing in this ring to a certain degree is rather similar to the large ring in the previous post. The outside of the ring is much simpler than the interior, and again, the aesthetic is on the inside, hidden and special. To not make some sort of crazy deadly torture device, all the surfaces on the inside of the ring that reach out and actually clasp onto the finger have been smoothed off. The ring clasps onto the finger in 4 places, which should make sure that the user can still get the ring over the knuckle, which still ensuring a tight fit.

The outer edge of the band has a very simple double band design. My tutor keeps reminding me that this ring is very much for me, and so I don't need to worry about it fitting the brief as much. Noted. I really like this design though, so that's not a concern.

Now, to start creating some awesomely awesome renders.