Summer Skills Endeavour.

Following on with my recent choice to try and further my photoshop abilities I have been following various tutorials to teach myself different and new skills to enable me to work more efficiently during my third year of university. My aim is to try and get as many possible computer skills under my belt or at least become more familiar with these programs to help in my third years. This has led to me reviewing my current skills and working to improve my weakest areas. I have begun with photoshop, as this is an area I am not very familiar with and that I know I need to do the most work on. So here is today’s work. I have followed a tutorial on how to produce this image and it needs tweaking to make it look a little better but that will follow soon. The tutorial showed me a lot of skills and buttons that I have not previously explored or worked which was the main aim. I will endeavour to develop the newly found functions in the future but for now enjoy the image and if you have any constructive criticism or advice do leave a comment here on the blog. Also if you have any tutorials that you have found useful I would be most grateful to hear about them.

Thank you for reading,

Student Render.

Project Update

So my current university project about Materials and Processes is going really well. I have decided what I want to look into and figured out how im going to compile all of the information I find out.

As I have said before the project is split into 2 halves. Part A – Material and process research and part B – Re-design a steel, plastic or ceramic object with a more sustainable material or process.

Part A – After a long chat with my lecturer and a lot of reading around the subject I have decided to make an App. This app will contain all the information and links I have found about the various materials and processes I have to investigate. This app will also have another function (time permitting) which will be to be linked to a samples chest in our design studio. The idea is that there will be a chest with various samples all of which will have QR codes on them. The user scans the QR code on a mobile device loaded with the app. The QR code will then take them to the relevant material and give them information and maybe links to a supplier.

Part B – After seeing the new Peugeot Onyx on top gear the other week I have been looking into newspaper wood. Peugeot used it as a dashboard material instead of plastic and I’m going to look into the feasibility and viability of using this material for a similar purpose. I’m going to look at how viable it is to put this material into a more mass market and if there is actually enough newspaper out there to make it possible. I have been given till Tuesday next week to figure out if this material is feasible and if not I need to rethink and maybe adjust this part of my project.

So what do you think. Do you think a car dashboard made of old newspapers is a good idea?

Thank you for reading

Student Render.

Synthetics Research

So this weeks research was into synthetics such as plastics. I was given an item and an A3 sheet with lots questions I had to answer about my object. The object that I was given was a plastic clothes peg. I spent a good couple of hours trying to figure out how it was made and identifying all the markings and lines on the clip.

These were all part of understanding the process that is undergone to extract the raw oil to turning it into a useable object and then what happens after we have finished using the object.

I spent the most time trying to figure out what tooling would be used to produce this part. After some research and a lot of sketches I came to the conclusion that it was made via a Twin shot two-part mould. I figured that to achieve the rubbery lighter blue part at the front of the peg it would require a blanking core during the first shot and a new formed core during the second shot. I did try to communicate this through a drawing but it was very complicated and I need to rework it but I will upload an image when I have done this.

So yer that was the first little bit of my project and it led to an hour-long discussion about witness lines and vapour blasting touching on shore hardness. During this discussion many objects around our studio were looked at and studied for their finish and there levels or reflectivity. We also talked about how companies hide witness lines and this lead to looking at cars that were parked outside of the building and how their body panel lines hide all sorts of things and helped define the shape of the car.

I found the lecture fascinating and I learn so much from it the next part of this mini one week project is to document my findings and the techniques and materials I investigated for future reference.

Thank You for reading

Student Render

New Project – Material and processes Research.

This week I have started a new university project. This project which will again be a 6 week project although due to easter the final week will be after the easter break. The briefing for this project is in two parts.

Part A: Create a design resource about materials and there related processes.

Part B: Create a design concept substituting either plastic steel or concrete with an alternative based on materials and techniques you have discovered.

This brief looks interesting and I will post soon about the work I’ve done this week on this project. I’m not sure yet what item or object I’m going to try to use for part B yet as it’s a very open range we have to look at. At the moment I’m thinking about bikes or cars but this might be a bit unrealistic in the time frame as I do have to make a model of my idea.

If anyone has any suggestions feel free to leave a comment here and let me know or if you have any advice on materials or techniques that I should specifically look into.

Thank you for reading.

Student Render.

Final Design – Part 2

So after much work yesterday my communications project has now come to an end. I am happy with my final design and the way the project has gone. As part of my final presentation I have produced a very quick visual form model (which I will put pictures up of soon).

I would like to thank everyone who has commented and liked my blog posts about and related to this project and I would like to thank those people who left me advice or wisdom on how I could improve my work. It is greatly appreciated.

Here is my final render of my communications device for people suffering with Alzheimer’s.

Let me know what you think of this final render.

Thank You

Student Render.

Final Design – Part 1

Here are some renders of my final design proposal. I still need to put them through photoshop to add the screens and other features.

Let me know what you think.

Thank You

Student Render

Sketch of the day 03-02-13

Here is a render I have been working on this afternoon of a concept I am currently designing.

Feel free to comment to let me know what you think or how I could improve it.

Student Render

Sketch of the Day

Here is a sketch I have been working on today. Let me know what you think

Communication Device Sketching

So today I have been working on a concept for my current project and I decided to practice my computer rendering skills. This concept is not finished yet and it’s still got a lot of work to be done on it. This drawing was done using a Wacom Intuos 4 and Sketchbook Pro Designer.

Let me know what you think. Thank you for reading.

Project route selection

So today I had a tutorial with my lecturer and we discussed the possible routes for my current communications project. This discussion was based on the two user groups I have identified as being of intrest to me.The two user groups were toddlers and dementia patients/carers. These two groups are very different but both I can see would hold good potential for a communications device.

After a long discussion and a lot of bouncing between the two user groups I have decided to follow the dementia route as I believe this will hold more possibilities.Now that I have decided on a user group I will now start to research into dementia and the way it affects people and their carers and look into possible ways to reduce some of the friction that my occur between families helping a relative with the condition.

I will post some sketches of possible ideas soon

Thank you for reading.

Studentrender.