Tonight we sleep

2011-06-04T22:16:00.002+08:00

It's been 2 years.
Move on.
Move a long now.

2009-11-18T17:08:00.003+08:00

Phase I. End

This is definitely long overdue. I should have written this a long time ago.
Because for now, this blog will serve as a repository for my processes that happened during my final year thesis project.

Thank you

Because this is not the end

2009-05-03T19:43:00.002+08:00

1 more day.
It was worth it.

Design or Die

2009-03-31T20:50:00.006+08:00

Once again, this blog will go on another short hiatus till the 5th of May 2009. And by then, all of the deliverables needed for me to graduate would have been submitted. Looking back at my work for my thesis, I think I've done fairly well in terms of having a consistent process. Too bad I can't say the same for my design though. I do hope that it gets better over time. And as the picture posted above says "Design or Die", this is the most apt expression at this point of time.

3rd Crit

2009-03-23T21:48:00.005+08:00

I'm not sure if I can keep this up for long. The length of this whole thesis project has taken a toll on me and I think i have fully flexed the creative boundaries of the design in it's current stage. I could already foresee the next round of improvements done but this next step is going to be a giant leap in it's evolution. Anyway. 3 weeks have passed and I'm trying as hard as I can to keep this blog going. 28 more days and it will be almost over for me. In the meantime, I'm in the middle of preparing my panels for the next presentation. I have also managed to streamline my cadding workflow to the extent that I can churn out these renderings within a short time :

Mocked Up

2009-03-02T17:42:00.006+08:00

I can't wait. Really. For all of these to be over. Well at least for while. My countdown timer says that I only have less than 6 weeks left before everything ends. I'm on an auto work mode where most of work processes have been streamlined to fully maximize the use of time. It has been tests after test where I am refining the design. I'll be having my second last crit tomorrow and even as I am typing right now, My laptop is still in the midst of rendering one of the product images. In case you have been wondering what I've been up to the past 2 weeks, here's a summary of it in pictures.

Tired

2009-02-23T18:43:00.001+08:00

There isn't' really much thinking to be done right now at this stage of my thesis. It is pretty much design refinement and loads and loads of mockups. I don't think I'll be posting anything thought provoking for the next few weeks till I end the semester. It's a lot of doing a little less thinking.

Thesis updates and timeline

2009-02-09T23:27:00.006+08:00

I've been meaning to show the whole process which includes sketches and mockups but I guess the severity of this project has taken a lot of my time. Hopefully though, that I could squeeze some of it and show it in the next few posts. The postings frequency has been rather random and slow of late but I do hope that you won't stop reading this blog. I just had my first crit for this final semester. The comments were alright with most of my tutors telling me to dig deeper into the cultural aspect of my intended users. The change in the form and shape has been quite significant after doing feasibility studies and asking the users the right questions. It was also due to my supervisor's encouragement and suggestion that it had turned the way it is now. The following panels are just some of the updates with a timeline to the project included. The concept still stays the same and if you're thinking of having a look at how far this has come, the preliminary design is found here.

2009-01-28T19:13:00.007+08:00

don't settle for simple. Push.

Story-storming: The aftermath

2009-01-28T03:51:00.015+08:00

Probably the most important aspect to designing a user experience is the ability to come out with creative storylines to enhance that experience. The steps are still pretty much raw but I've finally extracted the essence of the whole experience while collaborating with DELL. So here they are:

Story-storming : The steps
Works best when:
+ Having done the initial user observations
+ Not holding back on far-out ideas during the session, go crazy.
+ Ideas can always be scaled back later on to make the story more convincing.

1 . List out the various situations of the observed context in the order from start to finish.

2. Identify points of insignificance or irritation from within the list.

3. For each point noted, brainstorm ways to make that particular situation interesthing.

4. Rewrite the list again into a story by using the ideas from the brainstorm session.

5. Mix and match the ideas to make the story more interesthing and cohesive.

6. Sketch out the storyboard for visualization.

The steps will be revised from time to time.

Updated 8hrs Later:

I went about googling the term "story storming". Surprisingly, there's only one other related search found other than this blog entry. A book titled

"Digital Storytelling in the Classroom"

By Jason Ohler

has an almost similar method to the steps that I had written. The link to the book preview which is available on Google books is HERE.
In it, Ohler wrote about transformation in a story. I took this as reference to identifying points of irritation or insignificance in the steps I had written. Ohler also wrote that, the stronger the transformation, the stronger is the story.

I believe that this method to unleashing creative ideas is extremely helpful when we're looking for innovative ideas that are extremely context dependent. A further search on YouTube with the term "immersive design" returns searches in relation to set and production design. I think that design opportunities presents itself readily in movies and stories. It's like how many times have you gone " I wished that thing was real.." when you watch sci-fi shows?

I may have digressed abit in the last paragraph, but the point is, using stories to identify design opportunities are extremely powerful and I guess it relates easily to anyone when you have to explain the concept.

This is just one of the uses of stories to unlock creativity in the design area. I believe that this could be applied to almost anyone in any field.

DELL Immersive presentation test run

2009-01-19T01:05:00.011+08:00

This is a short video when my partner and I did a test run of the presentation using 3 different laptops and 3 projectors prior to the final thing that was held at the DELL office. The whole idea is to be able to make a presentation that is as immersive as possible.
The concept of the design is a highly interactive environment for a guitarist to choose and select both his guitars and effects pedals. Adding to the experience is how the guitarist can activate and unlock room variables using guitar solos as a password. The user also chooses his guitars by means of hand movements that mimics the strumming of a guitar.

Experience Design process

2009-01-18T22:06:00.010+08:00

The final presentation for a collaborative project with Dell finally ended 2 days ago at their office. 5 groups were shortlisted as the finalists and mine was one of them. Our design brief that was given when they came over one semester ago, was : to come up ( which is to design in this case ) and enhance the experience of the user in the chosen context of our choice. To me, what I gained most from this experience was the addition of another design process to add to my arsenal. In a nutshell, the whole process could be summed up into 3 phases:

observe > storyboarding > design

I have to note that in this process, the main emphasis is to come up with a good story. And through that story, design opportunities could be identified. The aim is to generate a wholesome design solution where there are many products and services as the outcome.

I am currently trying to digest and internalize this new process that I've just learned and hopefully able to make it much more comprehensible. And the outcome of this however, will be put up in a follow-up post. The following images are a mini visual diary of what went on during the process.

After having observed the context, storyboarding occurs. During this part of the process, 2 main stories were conceptualized. One story was the result of a 'bad' experience and the other story however tries to counter the 'bad' experience with the "ideal" experience.

Design opportunities were then identified from within the storyboard to create the "ideal' experience for the user.

Role playing were employed to help generate ideas. Apart from that, it also helps to dispel and reinforces certain aspects of the story.

The working mockups added to the fun factor of the process. On its own, it can also offshoot and be develop as a standalone product.

Finally, the concept was presented in such a way that it helps the viewer to immerse in the environment. What was utilized here were 3 projectors and 3 different laptops to help with the simulation.

Tigga 2.0

2009-01-06T17:37:00.007+08:00

I forgot how fun it was to use Rhino once again. I switched over to 3dmax during my 2nd year due to its nice default rendering engine. Now that I have Vray installed, its back again to Rhino, and its so much better to do surfacing. I've cleaned up my Tigga design. It's form is still much to be desired. But I'm putting this up because of of it's eye-candy factor. On a side note, I've yet to put up my process sketches. I'm still in the midst of mapping things out. It's wonderful to be in in my 4th year with supportive tutors like Dr. Yen and Carlos. I appreciate all they have done so far and the things they allowed me to do. It'll be less than 124 days till the end of my semester.

I want to hack my bicycle

2009-01-05T03:44:00.005+08:00

Design opportunities are aplenty here on this sunny island if one pays close attention. And I think that bicycles does present a lot of it. Just last week after having encountered the Leaf-kite, I saw an interesting add-on to one of the bicycle that was locked at the park there. Its owner had wrapped the center part with a stretchable netting. This then had created compartment that is big enough to put small items in.What I could imagine from this are bicycles with designs that utilizes its central portion fully. It could be a small compartment to put files or books in when commuting within the campus.

Leaf kite

2008-12-29T02:15:00.007+08:00

I had a picnic with my studio mates on Saturday. Apart from the food and the ambiance, one of the things that caught my attention was how a group of children had made a kite out of a giant piece of leaf. No it didn't manage to soar but it did provided them with a lot of enjoyment just running and playing with it. Perhaps what I found extremely interesting was how deep the semantic was. A leaf floating in the wind is akin to a kite being flown.

Design Hacks 101

2008-12-29T01:57:00.007+08:00

Hello readers. Its been a rather uneventful 2 weeks where design is concerned but for matters of the heart, that is an entirely different story. I'm not sure what really prompted me to even note about the latter. But then again, if you have no heart, you can't design. Yes I know the past few sentences could have been interpreted as absolute rubbish.

Anyway.

It's about time that I started posting entries with relations to 'design hacks'. The term is a reference to the things we do to any object and adjust it to suit our need beyond its intended designed function. For example, like how you could use a paper clip as a fishing hook. See what I mean? Apart from hacks, this new category of postings that I'm creating is also about my observations of how everyday objects are used by people without much thinking.

Naoto Fukasawa attribute this phenomenon as the 'core of awareness' and ideo (the design consultancy) call this 'without thought'. So in light of these things, I have decided to do my own observations and post them up.

stay tuned.

2008-12-21T21:08:00.007+08:00

and then there was none

Randomize

2008-12-18T18:05:00.007+08:00

It feels rather anti-climatic once the the whole shebang was over ( temporarily ) for this first semester of my fourth year. Procrastination has gotten to me as I wander back and forth in my head thinking about which design related issue I should write about. There are definitely a lot in my head right now and everytime I think about issues, I get a mental image of me giving a speech. And then this led to further daydreaming which eventually resulted in a mental orgasm that leaves me slightly satisfied and I don't feel like ranting on the blog anymore. Anyway, just to keep this site going, here's a post of a picture of a man trying to fix an air-conditioning unit. He is 8 floors up and lives directly opposite my apartment.
Enjoy.

Cardboard Amplifier

2008-12-04T16:28:00.007+08:00

In about less than 24hrs, I'd be making my last presentation for this semester. I did a design hack to create my mock up. The concept is suppose to be a wearable amp for the employees of a certain guitar store. I took out the main circuit board from a Danelectro headphone amp e-studio series. Hijacked a mini speaker from a friend. Throw in some hot glue , masking tape and cardboards and Voila! Oh, and it works too.

Hiatus

2008-11-17T11:14:00.003+08:00

Due to overwhelming work and tight datelines, postings will be on hold till the 4th of December 2008.

Tigga

2008-11-10T00:03:00.007+08:00

The thesis presentation went well. I am quite happy with the new design direction that I'm taking now. Other than the fact the design concept came about from real contextual observations, I am also able to fulfill my academic and industry requirement better. At the end of this, I still have to be able to attract potential employers at my graduation show. With 70% of the industry employers coming from the electronic sector, I can't afford to miss this chance to have my design directed at something techno-gadgety.

The Design Brief:
To enhance the urban night skating experience.

The Concept:
A portable device to allow skateboarders and other passersby to view their stunts in sequence immediately after they execute them.

I won't go into too much details at this point of time and there's still a lot of tweaking to do but I do hope the panels will suffice for now.

deck

2008-11-07T05:35:00.004+08:00

It's been a sleepless night. I'm wide awake at 5 a.m and configuring my flickr account to synchronize with this blog. Anyway, that's the picture of my deck that I've been intending to sell.

About 2 years ago, I was hired by some local secondary school as a relief teacher. I wasn't given a decent office and I had to run off to the bus stop outside just to get some shut-eye.During my short stint there, I hung out at the skate shop that is situated just right outside the school. It's the probably the oldest running skate shop in Singapore.

For those in the know, this shop needs no introduction.In the end, I got tired of waiting at the bus stop and decide to skate in between lessons after buying my deck from the shop. It actually feels like as if the gahmen is actually paying me to skate.

p.s
I failed to synchronize the settings with flickr

Invincible

2008-11-07T02:47:00.006+08:00

Once again I managed to pull off a stupendous stunt and execute it with grace. My apologies for missing the weekly update. I am now recuperating from a mild bronchitis that has been made worst by the immensely difficult ( but not impossible ) task of changing my design direction.

D-day ( thesis concept presentation ) came and at least 3 out of 4 professors were excited about the idea. I don't think this gives me bragging rights but it sure did put me at the higher end of the bell-curve for 3 straight times running ( see banner results below ). My professor has a funny way of grading us with smileys and emoticons.

Virtual Dead Hen

2008-10-31T00:18:00.006+08:00

I think I've just reached a virtual dead end. I should have seen it coming but I was too wrapped up in the process. And to add to that, I don't think I was even asking my self the critical questions. And it didn't help either when you have your tutors and mentor agreeing to it in the first place. As much as I loved the idea of the portable skate ramps, we all know that it's not going to work out. It's not feasible.

Hypothetically, even if it did get produced, it's going to require high end composite materials for its structure and lightweight-ness. At the end of it, this thing is going to cost a bomb and I know for sure skaters won't even buy it. It's not even a logical design since the skaters at the very core of it, are extremely DIY. They don't need what I'm going to design. I think whatever they need, it's got to be something simpler.

I have only 4 days left before the submission of my design concept proposal. In the bag though, I still have the skateable street furniture for me to fall back on. But to be honest, I'm not feeling it. What I'm actually looking out for is something that is derived from this context that I'm observing.

But it's not the end yet. It's only virtual.

Innovate please

2008-10-29T15:26:00.009+08:00

Good detail design will never
rescue a poor concept.

I think I 've done fairly a good job at coming up with my Product Design Specification (PDS) because it seemed initially that I was stucked with only 1 concept that I could only generate. Taking cue from redefining the design brief to my own advantage, I managed to come up out with a fair amount of 15 ideas. It's still a rather measly amount in my opinion and if Professor Turkka had been in charge of this, I think he'd call this effort extremely pathetic.

I'm not too happy with it myself even after consulting with Carlos( my Colombian project tutor and mentor ). He said it was ok. The only concept that I managed to work out was the first one that I came up with. In all honesty, I don't really think the concept had been pushed to its limit to reach critical innovation.

If you 're wondering, the concept that I worked on was about designing an extremely portable ramp system that can be carried on the back and be installed with almost any urban fittings.
On the bright side though, I found a different set of user group that can benefit from this extremely well. They are the wheelchairbound and alot of the solutions to their ramp problems seemed to resonate with my design concept.

I'm still feeling rather tempted to go through my concept generation phase again. At this point of time, what the concept need is the "Woah! Why didn't I think of that?!" inspiration.

Design Breves

2008-10-27T16:07:00.002+08:00

I think the text in the image is pretty much self explanatory for all you design process nuts who are readings this at this point of time. The picture was taken from Andre Liem's book , Managing The Industrial Design Process : A guide for studio practice. ( 2004, Pearson Prentice Hall ), pg 62.

Some of the information seemed a bit dated considering that it was only printed 4 years ago. Especially the bit on the "problem definition" which I took the liberty of crossing it out and added my own take on it.

At this point of time though, I think the term "design brief" is much more relevant than "problem definition" since the role of designers nowadays have pretty much evolved from just being problem solvers. We're a bunch of creative opportunist.

Good to go

2008-10-22T18:18:00.006+08:00

caption:
How do you turn 1 chair into many chairs?
That was the question that we explored when we were initially presented with the Erpo Dining Chair. There are many ways to go about it but we decided to approach the subject from a visual point of view. The name "#5" then arose from the fact that you can see 5 different chairs from this single chair. 4 different chairs form a 2-Dimensional silhouette and the fifth one can be seen in 3-Dimensions when viewed at specific angles.
In that aspect, you get many chairs out of one.
"#5" was also inspired from an optical illusion of how disconnected pieces form a full image when viewed from a certain angle. The construction of “#5" had used distinctive parts of the original Erpo dining chair. The two curved spines and the legs are each joined at a 45 degree angle to help form the 2-Dimensional chair silhouettes. The #5 chair had been designed for temporary sitting purposes in places such as art galleries and museums.

chair #5

2008-10-21T16:56:00.007+08:00

Fl!p Update
Sam and I went to the NUS museum today to take product shots of our chair. We had the idea of taking the pictures where the chair was in its context, which is, as a transient seating object for gallery viewers to sit down temporarily.
Kudos to Uncle Security for allowing us to take photos there.

Fl!p - Pre Submission

2008-10-20T01:41:00.007+08:00

The past week had been quite eventful. There was the Estee Lauder presentation that I thought had been pretty bad but the feedback turned out alright. Also, a long time friend of mine had try to persuade me to buy insurance from him. The conversation turned out to be rather interesting when he showed me the "Life Diagram". I feel rather tempted to elaborate on the latter but I don't want this to be a long post.

So I shall write about my preoccupation within the last 2 days. My friend, Samson, and I had been working on a chair redesign competition. The competition is called Fl!p and the design brief is to re-assemble the chair that they provided us with and come up with another design using only materials from the chair provided. Or as they put it in their flyer, to "Flip" the chair. Whatever that means.
The premise is actually quite similar to an IKEA design hack which can be found at this link.

There are a lot of ways to go about and interpret this. Some entrants are just submitting the "idea" of a "flipped" chair and not really redesigning it. Samson and I on the other hand, decided to take a tongue-in-cheek approach. Since they required the submission of 5 different views of the product, we designed a chair that has the silhouette of 5 different chairs from 5 different angles. Each silhouette forms a 2D outline of a chair. So for us, when we "flip" the chair, you get 5 chairs out of 1 chair.
So here are the pictures of what went on today:

We're still in the midst of it. The final chair design will be uploaded soon.

Start Anywhere

2008-10-12T22:36:00.003+08:00

The school is a system. And it also convey its educational materials through a system that has a beginning and an end. But perhaps that is where the danger lies for design education. The design process itself is reiterative and it does not have a start point nor an ending. But as design educators roll out their pedagogy, too many times they are laid out in a linear fashion. And too many times design students accept it blindly without question.

I've never really blamed the school system since classes have to be presented in such a way so that it is progressive. But I guess what is sorely lacking is the fact that design educators forget to point out that the process that they are teaching is actually a cycle with parts that can be interchanged. There is no need to follow the laid out process in a straight line.

So if you find yourself at the next assignment scratching your head and wondering where to start, don't. Grab a pen, take a photo, build mock ups. You don't even have to go looking for that elusive inspiration. It will hit you in the face. The important thing is to start. Just start anywhere. If you don't start somewhere, you won't know for sure where your design direction should be coming from and where it should go.

Just start.
Start anywhere.

The Importance Of Role-Playing In The Design Process

2008-10-10T22:53:00.001+08:00

For most designers ( most probably amateur or even student designers ), alot of thinking and designing happens in the head, gets drawn on paper and ideas are bounced off back and forth through discussion. But most of it just stops there.

I've just realized today however that even by having a simple piece of life-sized prop, helped unleashed hidden ideas. The prop got passed around, people subconciously acted out scenes even if they were joking about it. During the role-playing however, the actor may not be fully aware of his actions but his group mates acting as the observer however may spot certain key insighst that may not be apparent during the discussion.

This is one of the tools that I think should be used as an advancement of the mock-ups. Creating mock-ups helps the designer to visualize space, form and other physical elements. But by using it in a role-play, it will help the designer to evaluate his preconceived notions to see if it is being acted out in real life.

Thesis Design Directions

2008-10-08T13:53:00.001+08:00

I'm pretty glad that the presentation went well yesterday with all 4 professors being able to see the design directions I had proposed. It is also partly because of smart decision making of me choosing this area. Since none of them are experts in it and that leaves me enough room to explore without them constantly giving me suggestions which I don't like.

I had proposed 3 possible directions for this thesis to continue:
1. Plaza| park
+ This proposal focuses on the redesign of the urban site. It would probably be a plaza. Given that a skate plaza tries to emulate the streets, this design however tries to emulate a skatepark without alienating the rest of the non-skating public.

2. Sit-able skate objects
+ Much smaller in scale compared to the plaza park. As the topic suggest, this design direction will concentrate on making skate structures having secondary functions like being seats or tables. It is not about designing a furniture that you can skate on it. Its about designing a skate obstacle that you can dine on.

3. Portable Fittings
+ This is probably the direction that I like most. This direction focuses on the idea of being able to have the required structures anywhere you want.

To illustrate my point, here are my full presentation panels that I showed yesterday:

Post Mortem

2008-10-08T13:30:00.000+08:00

This will probably be the first post with regards to my thesis. It's been 8 weeks into the semester and my design direction has finally been set in stone. It's been a dizzying trip with a lot of round-abouts trying to convince the panel.

It'll be less than 8 more months left before I graduate. There a are a lot of things to do right now which includes getting the design report down into writing.

At this point of time things ar egoing along smoothly. Or at least that's the way I saw it. I've been less of a planner and concentrating more on being able to give my self options when faced with situations. Things seemed to work out that way better.

This post will also be a primer to greater blog changes to come as it will shift from being from a photoblog to an online compilation of my design work.

More post on my work soon.
That's all for now.

Random Musings

2008-10-05T18:29:00.001+08:00

almost.dead.but.not.quite

Toh Guan Sunrise

2008-08-28T13:31:00.003+08:00

to all the mornings that we missed

Sister and nephew

2008-07-15T15:45:00.002+08:00

Cambodia - Hospital Visit

2008-06-20T19:05:00.002+08:00

this is my last entry for the Cambodia photo set.

Random Musings

2008-05-28T13:17:00.000+08:00

f i s t & p l a n

Moving Day - Danial helps out

2008-05-18T16:00:00.002+08:00

Moving Day!

It's a typical lazy Sunday afternoon, but some work needed to be done anyway. In a few weeks, my sister would be getting married and I would need to switch rooms. My nephew offered to help his mummy with the work.

Cambodia - Day 3 onwards

2008-05-12T20:59:00.003+08:00

Hello brown eyes
I miss you.

Cambodia - Day 2

2008-05-01T13:23:00.003+08:00

Orphanage

For the remainder of the 3 weeks, we stayed near the orphanage. A month after we had left, the place was converted into a political party's station. We still have no idea what happened to the children or the money that we sent back.

Karter - Kitchen accesories

2008-04-26T17:46:00.002+08:00

KARTER

It'll be almost a year before its my time to put my works up on display and let it be critique unscrupulously. I've seen my seniors graduate year after without knowing really what happened to them except for the few that managed to have their name repeatedly appear on design sites for their winning entries. I thought about that for myself today.

3 years ago, I made my first product presentation as a freshmen. The reception was less than lukewarm if not cold, by my professors and tutors. I can't quite figure out what was exactly going on in their heads as they judged my product but I was honestly quite satisfied with my work.

A year later, it was submitted online and became part of an online exhibition showcasing Asia's up and coming designers in conjunction with the Singapore Design Festival in 2007.
If you're interested, the link to the exhibition can be found here at Dandelion .

Here are some product shots. Do contact me if you're interested in owning one of these.

Cambodia - Day 1

2008-04-24T14:51:00.001+08:00

The Killing Fields

This series of photos taken was probably the first time I was exposed to really interesting subjects but at the same time feel hopelessly helpless. You see someone dying and there's nothing you can really do to alleviate the situation. At that point of time, I was merely a student with a camera. And even after all these years, I am still wrestling with this issue.

Back in 2002, I had participated in an overseas community service project to Cambodia. Together with 20 Early Childhood and Engineering students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, our task was to help refurbished an orphanage in Kompong Cham.

In the coming weeks, more photos will be uploaded from this trip.
The first stop we made after landing was at the Pol pot regime's Killing Fields.

Random Musings

2008-04-23T03:15:00.001+08:00

Skate and the city

2008-04-22T22:29:00.002+08:00

A visual documentation of the various facets in the local skate culture
module code : ID3121 Design Case Study

- skate and the city -

end