Hiatus

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

Tigga

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

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

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

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

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

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.