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Design Process in 1 day

On Wednesday 17th March I was able to go back to school, and this meant I had access to stuff I don't at home. The focus of this session was to go through the design process in a day, from the visual research all the way to final design idea. We started of with a still life that was again linked back to the whole innovation topic so we had a bicycle, two wheels, two tires, a bike's front fork and a block.

Next we were tasked with doing a variety of drawings:

- 2min continual line

- 2min left handed

- 2min eyes closed

all on 1 piece of A3 paper

- 15min continual line

- 40min tonal drawing

each on a separate piece of A3 paper

These are the drawings. From the top one, with the three drawings on, my favourite one is the one i did with my eyes closed, the left handed one is appalling, I am clearly not ambidextrous, I had also done a left handed one for the Darth Vader mask, and that one was a lot better, and I think that was down to the use of chalk for the Vader one because the chalk could sink in the paper so to speak so and the lines were more determined by my arm movement rather then my wrist for the bike one. Anyway it was an enjoyable process. I really like the continual line ones, and the way the lines overlap and what that creates. Despite the tonal drawing being the one I had the most time on, I think it's the worst. Too much time, too much thought and that results in harsh and heavy lines that lack character and expression I find unlike the other ones. In a way the ones where I was most restricted (2min and continual line) were the ones that looked the more free, I didn't have time to ponder so I just had to let the mind go and be instinctive.

The next step was design development.

I came up with 6 designs, I like #1, #2, #3 and #5. #1 is an art gallery, two galleries, being the blocks and the "wheels" would be discs that would be laid on top, so it would create roofed gardens, I had the Abu Dhabi Louvre by Jean Nouvel in mind there. But going back to the photo I really liked the way the wheels, and tires create this roof-like surface above the block. #2 is a pavilion, its taking the bike frame and filing it, it would have a triangular entrance, a spiral staircase going to a little balcony. #3 is the bike forks holding a cuboid, which would be a house. I imagine that on the coast. #4 is again that filled in bike frame, but with a dome on the left, with the shape of the front fork of the bike connecting the dome to a bridge that connects to the bike frame. I was thinking of that being a gallery type of thing again. I don't like that design looking back at it, it's too stocky and tries to do too much without really achieving anything. #5 is some type of viewing platform that I would imagine on a coast again, I think it works well because it's quite simple, it's the same thing (wheel laid flat and fork) repeated just on a larger scale each time. #6 is another take on #3, I took that cuboid, but this time had it on stilts, the stilts being the handle bars of the bike. I however don't like that design either, it looks a bit too gimmicky and reminds me of Henry j Waternoose III, the spider crab villain from monster inc.


I unfortunately did not fully complete the deign process, because I never developed a final design. However from the drawings I had I would've developed idea #3 it's the one I prefer. I really enjoyed this whole design in a day, and funnily enough I think it tied in very well to my artist research especially the Eames one, because in that I had say I wanted like Charles Eames to act quickly upon the ideas I had, and that was exactly what was done in this exercise. What I will take from this day is to create a ton of design ideas, in the previous projects I stoped at 10, but I created six there in a very short period of time. With all my previous project, whilst I was in the creation process for the final designs I always came up with new improved design ideas, but did not have the time to create them. For this project I'll try to come up with all those ideas in the design development stage and not after.


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