Category: BSc Product Design

All work undertaken during my time on the BSc Product Design course at Cardiff School of Art and Design.

Second Tutorial

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Final Year Product Design

We had our second tutorial group meeting yesterday. I feel that once again I have a direction to work in and something to improve on. Beth has advised that I observe some road junctions to see the problem first hand and to confirm the problems my secondary research has identified. I plan on focusing on the infamous Crwys Rd / City Rd / Albany Rd / Richmond Rd / MacKintosh Pl junction which many people in Cardiff regard as dangerous. I must also make contact with some local cycling groups and ask for their feedback on the matter as first hand experiences will be invaluable to my research. I must also ensure that I make no assumptions about my market or anything relating to the product. Beth has advised that we identify a persona which effectively describes our target consumer. I also went through my brief with Beth, who explained […]

Cycle statistics

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Final Year Product Design

During this past week, I have been looking at a lot of cycle accident statistics, which seem to have pointed out to me what the main problems that are afflicting the cycle industry. I have come to realise that city cyclists have a tendency to have more accidents, mainly due to the larger number of cyclist in the small space of a city. Overall, I have found that men between the age of 36 and 45 are the most likely demographic to have a fatal or serious accident. It seems that approx 75% of fatal and serious accidents occur in an urban area, where 75% occur at or near a road junction,  80% during daylight hours and approx 75% of cyclist killed have a majors head injury. http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/cycling/facts-figures.aspx#references I have also looked into the most common injuries that occur, finding that Limb injuries such as arm and leg injuries are […]

First Tutorial

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Final Year Product Design

In the right group, we will be having tutorials with Bethan Gordon. I am quite happy about this as I felt that the project Beth ran last year was really enjoyable and so I am hoping that with her as my tutor for this project, I should be able to push the boundaries of my design. Our first tutorial was an interesting one, I feel that my initial idea has been diversified into a far more interesting topic of research and design. Where In was originally going to focus on cycle helmet design due to the lack of cyclists who wear helmets in the city, I have now decided to work on the broader topic of cycle safety in general. Beth advised that I broadened the scope of my project and I am no going to start work on researching  cycle safety in general. I want to find out what […]

Real, Right and Possible

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Final Year Product Design

The third year has begun with the introduction of three different routes for design. The real which deals with full on design for manufacture, the right which deals with more creative solutions with an eye on eco-design and the possible which deals with highly creative designs which may be too blue sky for manufacture for the time being. I feel that the right design seems most appealing to me as I don’t think I would want to become a boring designer who created boring and uninteresting pieces of work which no one would care about. At least I think this is the case, though it does concern me that my skills within product design may in fact lie within the real, not the right. The final decision was difficult to come to, however I feel that it reflects what I want to do…

Design for Manufacture

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in 2nd Year - Practising Product Designer

The final project for the first term of the practising product designer module was the design for manufacture project. Paul Wilgeroth introduced us to the project, which entailed the adaptation of one of our previous products to create a design which had a highly detailed scheme for manufacture. We were set the brief of creating a product that was efficient for manufacture with sensible manufacturing methods depending on the the product type and quantity that was to be created. I decided to continue my work on my Sedna LED lighting panel designs, as I believe it had a good potential for sales and that it would be suited to be in a range of panel products. I began by outlining my ideas for the development of the idea, concluding that I would add another flat display to the panel range, allowing the range to be far more versatile. My next […]

Orange Box Live Project

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in 2nd Year - Practising Product Designer

The third project of the practising product designer module was a live project with a furniture company called orange box. The project began with a talk from one of Orange box’s lead designers presenting his company to us, explaining what their company was and what they stand for. We were then treated to a factory visit field trip, where we saw the manufacturing side of the company in the South Wales valleys. The field trip was an excellent insight into the manufacturing processes involved with making furniture products and I feel that it has definitely improved my design work, especially designs related to design for manufacture. Our project brief was then set out that we should isolate a specific area of seating within a modern office space, which we would create a furniture product to solve an existing problem. We began small scale research for the project in groups, where […]

Sedna LED Live Project

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in 2nd Year - Practising Product Designer

The second project of the Practising Product designer module was the Sedna LED live project. Once again, the project was undertaken as part of a team. Our tutor for the project – Olivia Kotsifa, had invited a member of the Sedna LED design team in to give us an insight into the work Sedna produces, including their well known efficient LED strip based products. After being given an understanding of the company we would be designing for, we were given the brief, which was to create a lighting feature for a bar or club environment of our choice. Our team began by each researching a different location of our choice, then we collated our results in the form of mood boards. My location was the up-market bar on Windsor Place – The Buffalo Bar. The location proved to be a mismatch of different styles, all culminating into creating a unique atmosphere […]

Breffo Live Project

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in 2nd Year - Practising Product Designer

The first project within the practising product designer module was the Breffo live project. We worked in teams for the majority of the project, until the end where we worked solo to refine and develop a final solution. We began by learning about user testing within product design, where Bethan Gordon discussed with us the intricacies of user testing, from why it is important, recruiting the participants, methods for testing, how to record the data and finally how to analyse the data we recorded. We were then introduced to Breffo – a company that creates mobile phone accessories, mainly the spider podium which is an 8 legged phone holder for use in a variety of situations, most notable of which was on vehicle dashboards. Breffo introduced the brief, which was to design a new mobile phone accessory following the Breffo brand. The main constraint was the fact that the project […]

Day 29 -IP / Field Clash

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Surprise Me

Howdy, Well today has been fun, while I have been working on my presentation of my surprising project – Survival of the Fittest, it seems that I wont be presenting it yet. As part of our product design programme, we have been enlisted in the university’s Intensive Programme, an international 2 week module where we are going to be working together with students from other European universities to solve a social problem. Whilst this does seem like a very interesting opportunity, it has happened to clash with our presentation day and confusion was sure to set in. Essentially, I missed my first IP lecture as I was following an email that informed me that I did indeed need to go to the Llandaff campus to present my project, unfortunately I was then told that I should return to the IP lecture at Howard Gardens, despite the fact that I was […]

Day 26 – Survival of the Fittest – Predator

Posted Sam MoellerPosted in Surprise Me

Howdy, So I have compiled my ideas into a solution to my ethically unsound problem. I call it the predator – a quadrupedal robot that helps you to stay fit by chasing you down at the speed you set, for the time you set. If the predator catches you, it uses a front mounted low voltage stun gun to ‘encourage’ you to continue. The predator is reinforced by a mandatory government issue wrist band, which ‘ensures’ you remember to keep fit by setting a schedule based on you age and fitness level, then reinforces the schedule by using mild electric shocks, varying in severity depending on how badly you stray from the schedule… The predator would be based on the Boston Dynamics ‘Wild Cat’ prototype: My design would be to create a commercially reproduce-able government issue version of the Wild Cat with a newly designed outer casing and stun gun […]