I kept developing my idea. I'm thinking about using grocery carts in the grocery stores to indicate what a person wanted to gain from dating another, maybe a hook up, maybe a relationship...

In terms of how this induces a digital detox, it makes people spend less time on their phone looking for dates. It also integrates daily life and dating together. It stops people from mindlessly swiping, encourages them to go outside, and meet people. 

I just have to keep developing and refining the system, and see how the grocery carts would work.

Eureka!! Over the weekend I noticed the strangest thing. People waste so much time on dating apps! Even I do. It's a mindless an d time wasting swipe on people you probably never meet.

Today i started thinking about how I could bring dating back to the traditional way it was. Meeting in person, and not having preconceived notions about the other. 

What if dating could be integrated into public spaces or a persons daily life?

I had a group tutorial with Kathleen and a few classmates. We discussed the idea of stripping the whole "fear " of going on dates, with people just meeting up in a regular space, like a gym or a supermarket.

Then I got to thinking of making supermarkets for single people. It could encourage communities to go out and eat and cook for themselves. But what if I could make a supermarket for everyone, and have a specific code for single people who wanted to date? 

Today was kind of a dead day. I didn't really feel energetic and didn't feel like I was moving forward with my project. 

I spent most of the day still developing my ideas and debating with my friends about whether I should make an app or not. 

I really don't know where I'm going with this project. I like the brief, and creating a service that brings communities together. But I have no idea what I'm doing! How do I integrate a digital detox into a world which is so heavily dependant upon technology to move on with their lives?? 

Just feeling a little frustrated with myself for not being able to think of any concepts. 

Today we met two students from the BA product Design course. Being able to ask them about the course and talking about the projects they did for unit 4 was really intense, but enjoyable. 

They're presentation made me really think about what I wanted my experience city "product" to be. Whether it would be an app, or a product, or a physical service. 

But if it was an app, wouldn't that contradict the idea of a digital detox? The whole point of a digital detox is to not look at or use screens... I might have to rethink this. 

From what I gathered from Catarina and Jan is that my work and my portfolio should reflect who I am, and what I want my work to portray. But keep it neat, and make sure that only the necessary things are on the page. 

Today was the start of the experience city project. 

I enjoy user centred design, but I've never been exposed to systems design, or service design. I feel like this brief is definitely going to be challenging, and I'm going to learn a lot along the way.

I found a few slides interesting and thought it'd be good to include them in my workflow, to remind me what to focus on. It also allows me to reflect upon what I learnt today.

We got sorted into groups based on different themes, and decided upon research tasks that related to that theme. Our theme was leisure. We first discussed the assets and issues surrounding leisure in a city.

After discussing these, we chose what research task we wanted to focus on. I chose a digital detox.

Crit day!!! 

I was literally so excited for today. I feel really proud of what I created. My portfolio sheets are good and my product concept is strong as well. 

I also talked about my concept to the tutors, and the people from Chelsea Physic Garden. 

I normally don't like talking in front of large groups of people, but I felt so happy about my outcome that I put myself forward, which... was a little daunting. It's also good practice for my interviews.

I don't remember much of what I said, but from what my peers told me, my voice was a little shaky, but I was able to talk about my concept pretty well. 

I'm really really happy with this project. I feel so passionately about sustainability and making the earth a better place, and I want my products to encapsulate those ideologies, whether in the concept itself, or even the manufacturing methods. I think that this product has really made me re-learn my love of design. I felt excited and innovative, and didn't feel like the design was a task or chore, I was excited about the days ahead and when it managed to disperse seeds and fly I was overjoyed. 

I loved the brief and the amount of time we had to work on the project. Honestly, I feel this is my most successful project. 

Today I started making a clay mould to start the vacuum forming process to create my frisbee.

I know that injection moulding is definitely not a sustainable method of creating any product, but `i feel as if vacuum forming is quite wasteful. So much excess is cut off from the product... However, it could be melted down and reused I suppose.

I know for a fact the mould is sustainable, as I am able to use the mould multiple times, AND the clay is totally recyclable and reusable. 

I have to wait a day for the mould to dry before vacuum forming it. The process of making it was actually quite peaceful, and I found it really fun to just make the mould and press the clay and then have to cut the edges (carefully of course).

I also spent the day making the mould for the seed disperser. I realise that for something so detailed and smaller than the frisbee I couldn't make it out of clay. The process would be horrendous to say the least. I decided to make a mould out of plywood, in reality I would probably use bamboo to make the moulds, but I didn't have any access to flat bamboo. 

It's similar to the clay frisbee mould, in the sense that it can be reused multiple times. It's making process wasn't too difficult, but I had to make sure the measurements were accurate. 

Overall, a really hands on and making day, but one that I enjoyed. I really like being able to bring my concepts to life. 

Today was spent model making and developing how the frisbee would actually work.

I'm not sure whether I should make the frisbee out of plastic, or bamboo. In reality if it WERE made of plastic, I would make the actual frisbee out of an algae based bioplastic. 

From the model making I realised that the idea of a bamboo frisbee is... ridiculous. It would be too heavy, and the process of making it! Takes up too much energy, and generally quite unsustainable.

The process of creating multiple moulds and then having to cut them out and stick them and then sand it down was so tedious!

I think for Thursdays class I'm going to attempt creating a mould to vacuum form the frisbee. It could be a much faster and much more sustainable method. 

Half of the day today was spent looking at each others portfolio sheets and doing an overall critique of everyones work. 

At first I did think it was quite useful, but after a couple of people passed, the feedback got repetitive and I felt like I didn't get any useful feedback on my work, other than to not use double sided tape, which was done just to stick my images down for a short span of time. 

For the second half of the day, I discussed my ideas with Kathleen and settled on the idea of a frisbee that could disperse seeds. 

What I'm unsure of is whether it would be used as a tool for education, or an actual product for farmers to plant vegetables, or even in a deforested area to replant trees. 

But, I do like the idea of a fun and friendly spin on such a serious subject. 

Today was a really good day. 

Kathleen made us think with the use of diagrams and charts, and was able to put into context each aspect of sustainability we had to focus on. It was super helpful.

We did an exercise where we sectioned off each aspect and listed idea or products that related to it. For example, a "healthy lifestyle" could relate to mental health.... relaxation.... something to aid in relaxation.... a massage. So on and so forth.

As I stated before, I work in a problem-solution sense. This does not work for such a huge topic. Being able to break it down, and thinking of ideas that relate to aspects of sustainability makes so much more sense. My idea generation became so much more fluid and made much more sense to discuss, and seemed somewhat viable. 

I feel like if I develop my ideas over the weekend, I'll have something good to discuss with my tutors.

Started idea generation today. It was so difficult!

I love sustainability, but I hadn't realised that it would be such a broad subject to think for.

I usually work with finding a problem with something, and then designing a solution for it, and expanding the idea along the way. 

There are so many issues with sustainability, and implementing it, and reducing our intake of resources and materials that the options are too wide, and the solutions are too complex for a two week project, and a student who doesn't have the capability to create a new material through science

Overall the day was a major brain fry. I had a few ideas which I discussed with Tom, and they weren't bad. But I don't want this project to be an "OK" project. I want it to be really good, and the ideas I have... aren't.

Today was the start of the Wildlife project. 

I've always been interested in sustainable design, and have been trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle. So the brief we were given and the aim of the project seems really fun and exciting to me.

After reading the brief, we explored the Chelsea Physic Garden. 

We received a lecture about the Garden and how it has over 4000 species of plant and tree life.

 In relation to sustainability, at first I didn't fully understand why we were in the Garden. But after walking around I found some really interesting materials I could work with, as well as aspects of the garden that could be implemented into peoples daily life. 

The idea of creeper vines, and integrating them into product design.

The use of hemp rope and bamboo also caught my eye, and I think those materials could replace a lot of the finite materials we currently use, and be so much better for the environment. 

Probably in the top 20 times I've been so frazzled about anything in my life ever. 

I loved seeing everyones products and being able to interact with them. My partner He Li designed something really fun and cute and I absolutely loved it. I was really impressed with what we all came up with, especially in the span of 1 week. 

Meeting Mike and being able to talk to him really allowed me to understand the Product Design course at CSM at a much deeper level, especially when he talked about what the course actually entailed. He was actually not as scary as I thought he would be and seemed genuinely interested in what we produced. 

I stayed after class with a few of my close friends to talk to him one-on-one as well as with Kathleen. The feedback he gave me was so useful, and I definitely will be incorporating the ideas he gave me into my sketchbook and future projects. Especially the idea of sketch modelling and showing a process in the sketchbook, rather than jumping around all over the place. 

He also made me feel a little calmer about my likelihood of getting into CSM. Not that it is 100% chance or anything, but it gave me hope.

If anything, this project pushed me to work harder and faster, but keep everything I did neat and organised. It also assured the fact that I did love Product Design, and it is what I want to do in my future. 

Today we learnt how to glaze vessels with Andy in the ceramics workshop. I didn't realise how long and technical the process was. I literally thought it was dipping the ceramics into paint. But there was measuring and different materials that created the glaze! 

I do have to say, that I am worried about my objects breaking. The kiln is going to be so much hotter...

Today was a making day. I had the concept and I had a model of what I wanted to make. I had a plan and a goal of what I wanted to achieve and walked into the wood workshop with a semi-clear idea of what I was doing. 

Whilst in the scrap yard I found a piece of plywood which looked like scrap of wood that had been compressed to make one board, since it was in a junk pile I decided to use it for my own project. 

At the workshop, I asked the technicians a couple of questions and it made the process of making my product a whole lot easier. 

At first, I was thinking of cutting and stacking multiple pieces of wood to create a holder for the shelf I was creating, however after talking with a technician, I just cut out the same base piece twice on the bandsaw, and used a jigsaw to create the holes into one of the bases. After which, I would glue them together and sand them down. 

Overall, a slightly rushed and stressful day, but I really loved it. 

Over the weekend I had gone to do primary research at SPC. SPC is a design space and sells a variety of products. 

Over the course of todays lesson I researched more into my clients favourite designers as well as used the research I had gathered as inspiration for more design concepts. 

After having a discussion with Georgia, I had realised that the ideas I had presented were far too sculptural and were too literal. They looked like kids toys and honestly didn't hep solve any issues, and were rather decoration. 

So, I had to rethink all my ideas, and looked at my client from a different angle. I focussed less on his hobbies and "favourite things" and rather the issues he faced in his daily life, and how (if possible) I could make his life easier.

One of the issues I discussed with Georgia was how many coins he had scattered around his room, and how they're quite a hassle to keep track of. I started my idea scheming based off of this idea. But then I remembered another interesting thing He Li had mentioned. Every morning he's always in a rush, and never knows where he keeps his keys or airpods, and has to search through his clothes and jackets to find certain items. I started iterating upon the concepts I had made for his coin collecting into holding other products. 

Later on in the day I made a cardboard model of what I hoped to create. 

Today was the start of the new project Utility. I was paired up with He Li and learnt about the designer client relationship that takes place during user centered design. I learnt a lot about him in a very short time; such as, his likes and dislikes, issues he faces in his daily life, his daily routine, and his favourite designers. 

From what I understood, He Li has a few interesting things about him:

- He factimes his mom everyday. However, since his phone battery drains so fast, he has to charge his phone constantly, and finds trouble facetimimg his mom without his phone falling or not balancing. 

- Although he is a great chef, he never fully knows when his vegetables are clean.

- He likes everything to be kept at a perpendicular angle at his desk.

- He LOVES football. 

After I discussed with He Li and we got to learn about each other, we were tasked with doing very quick sketches of products our client might want. I found this task to be quite enjoyable, albeit a little stressful. I talked to He Li after the drawings and explained to him my ideas and tried to identify which three he liked the most. 

After which, I kept developing and expanding upon these ideas. I had to keep in mind the fact that I only had 3 days to make this product, and the ideas I had couldn't involve too many complex mechanisms. However, I like the challenge of creating a functional product in such a quick timespan. 

He Li's 3 Objects

From what I understood of He Li's 3 objects is:

- He loves listening to music, and can't go anywhere without his airpods

- He drinks at least 2-3 diet cokes a day (what)

- He likes using money, rather than credit cards

- He has a lot of coins

- He likes metallic materials

Today I started thinking about the added material for my ceramic project. 

I mainly focussed on the use of wood and how it could be incorporated into the product. Wood is a traditional material and I wanted to use it with this non-traditional tea time product. I also just like using wood as a product or an accessory. It's a versatile material and I enjoy working with it.

I created many ideas in my sketchbook, and am still not 100% sure of what I want to do. I think I'll have to talk with one of m tutors to further expand upon my ideas. But, I do know it will have something to do with picking up biscuits without getting your hands dirty. 

The second day of slip casting. Over the weekend I came up with a lot of ideas and I tried to create the ones I liked the most today. 

After talking to my tutor, Georgia, I realised the ideas I had created weren't that good in terms of concepts; they were too messy, and too many concepts were involved in one product, and were unnecessarily complex and difficult to make. However, the concept of warmth and biscuits being a communal snack was a concept that both Georgia and I liked, and found that we could expand upon in terms of idea generation. 

I quickly sketched out 15 ideas and started creating 5. The ideas I had were surrounded around communal dunking, and the idea of the heat of a liquid being able to warm a chocolate biscuit. I tried slip-casting multiple bowls with the use of the moulds from press moulding but found that these bowls too way too long to ry, and were too thin. I started press moulding them and found this method to be much more efficient, effective and took a much shorter amount of time to create. After creating the bowls, I used slip--casted plated and cylinders to create a tier form or some sort of form that could accommodate cookies, as well as a vast amount of liquid. 

The day was stressful, but I enjoyed working at a fast pace, as well as generating more ideas. It really made me think much faster, and I worked much more quickly. 

Such a good and interesting day!

Learning how to throw and press mould was definitely my highlight of the week. It was an enriching experience and felt like a good break from the stress of creating a vessel. Learning the new techniques was really fun, and felt like good stress relievers. 

Throwing was the one I enjoyed the most. At first I thought I was pretty good at it. with the shaping and the puling of the clay and extending it into a cylindrical shape, however, after I created the hole it became a mess. I couldn't throw properly and just create a dinky bowl. It was awkward and slanted and definitely not what anyone would want a bowl to look like. However, for a first attempt it definitely wasn't the worst I could have done/ I found the whole process to be really fun, and it required a lot of focus and energy, which I enjoyed putting into the pot. 

Throwing was a different experience. For me, the craft wasn't necessarily in making and pressing and rolling out the clay, but more the decorative aspect of the plate, which I quite liked. I liked the idea of plates that had nature or forest icons implemented into their design, so I created a little forest of leaves and flowers on one side of the plate. Looking back now, I wish I had added some slip paint onto it to gain more colour, and allow for the decorative pieces to stand out more, but I liked the amount of attention and creativity it took to create a beautiful plate. 

Slip casting is an interesting experience. Being able to create any form you want from cutting a clay object was hard, but I definitely enjoyed it.

I found myself very invested in what I was creating, and got really absorbed in the task. The process of slip casting is also very systematic. Taping the mould together (if necessary), getting the slip, pouring the slip into the mould, waiting for the slip to get absorbed into the plaster mould, pouring out the slip, waiting for it to dry, getting it out of the mould. It's all very logical. After which, being able to cut and attach pieces together to create a product is really cool. 

The material that is clay is like nothing I've experienced before. It's malleable and easily an be moulded to become any shape, even once it hardens a liquid can be used to soften it to make it more manageable. As well as joining two components made of clay together is much easier than that of plywood or metal. However, being able to create unique and interesting clay objects was a big of a challenge for me. We had a limited amount of moulds we could use to create shapes, so at first, you caused me to feel a little restricted. As the day progressed I started liking the challenge of having few shapes to work with to create a new object. 

I highly enjoyed working in the ceramics studio, and although i found it to be really intense, I liked the pace at which I was working, and being able to experience and explore a material I had never worked with before. 

Today was the first day I had worked at the Central Saint Martins in Kings Cross. We learnt how to make plaster moulds for slip casting. 

I really enjoyed working the ceramics workshop, it was really peaceful and I felt very productive whilst I was there. 

We learnt all the steps of how to make a mould. I worked in a group with Phoebe and Eva, and we made a mould of a glass bottle. 

We started with a block of clay and started carving out the shape of the bottle. After the shape was carved we inserted the bottle into the clay and placed wooden planks around the clay and tied it with rope to ensure that no plaster would leak out. After which we filled the caved clay with plaster to create the mould.

Mixing the plaster was therapeutic in some way? Having to mix the plaster and making sure all the clumps were gone was really nice, as well as working with people who didn't mind getting their hands dirty and were invested in the project was enjoyable. 

After we made the two moulds, we had to shave them down and sand it to make the plaster mould smooth and usable.

I think that learning how to make the mould today was genuinely useful. I was able to understand the process and appreciate the amount of time it took, as well as the amount of precision and focus it take to create a mould.

The vessels project is a 2 week project based on ceramics. Which is a material I have never worked with. Today we learnt how to use a mould and create a ceramic vessel. Kathleen did a live demonstration of how she created "Milky", which is a two headed milk jug. I was able to understand how a ceramic product has been made, and the process of it and how long it would take.

Another thing I understood today was the extremities that ceramics can go to. We looked at traditional and contemporary ceramics, in terms of style; and after that looked at craft and mass produced ceramics. Making this quadrant/scale really opened my eyes into the world of ceramics, and how it’s not just the traditional Wedgwood teapots and saucers, or basic plates and mugs, but rather can incorporate other materials into it, as well as can come in complex forms, or multiple components which join up to create one form.

We also started looking into a specific object and analysed it, as an exercise for our own objects that we were given. We looked into a muffin, and the physical properties behind it, where it can be found, the feelings associated with it, etc. It made me see my own object (a biscuit) in a different light, and start thinking of a ceramic vessel for a biscuit in that sense. 

Today was the critique. Overall, I was really proud of my work and the A2 pages I had created. My product worked (which was the main purpose), but it definitely needs some improvements. It looked too rough, and the rotation/pulling function of the base was not what I hoped for it to be. I used modeling wire to insinuate the idea of a hinge on the planks, since a hinge is too big for the 1:5 scale model. However, people were able to understand the moving function of the product, and see how I incorporated movement into a chair to encourage space saving products.

The feedback I received was really useful and allowed me to see my portfolio pages and sketchbook from a different perspective. I hadn’t considered the use of color in my sketchbook when sketching out rough ideas, and on hindsight my page looked quite grey, so I’ll definitely want to improve upon that. As well as showing my progress within my sketchbook, and not only the A2 sheets. This allows people to make connections between your work and see your progress.

Overall I found the whole of the MOVEMENT project to be really enjoyable, and although very fast paced and a little rushed (on my behalf), was able to really understand the concept of movement within a product. I worked with a lot of the people in my class and found myself really motivated and happy whilst doing this project.

I started officially making my product today. I went to the wood workshop and used the bandsaw and pillar drill to cut out my pieces and create fittings for the wires. I made a plan of what I had to do for the whole of the day, and it obviously didn’t fully go through.

THE PLAN:

• drawing out 7 planks (10 mins)
• drawing out 2 bases (10 mins)
• drawing out cuts in the middle of 3 slots (5 mins)
• drawing out slots on 7 planks (10 mins)
• draw out holes for drilling on 3 planks. 4 holes. (20 mins)
• cut out planks using bandsaw (20 minutes)
• cut out  bases using bandsaw (15 minutes)
• cut 3 planks in half (10 minutes)
• cut out slots on 4 planks (15 minutes)
• sand planks and bases using sanding machine/sandpaper (30 minutes)
• drill holes into 6 half cut planks x4 (30 minutes)
• glue together 4 planks and 2 bases together (1 hour)
• cut wire and fit through holes (30 minutes)

For some reason, the plan didn’t work. I couldn’t stick to the plan and took too long when working because I was too nervous to ask the technicians for help and didn’t feel comfortable working in a space where everyone could see what I was doing. Another reason is that I had to redo my cutting, since the first round I had done was not straight, nor was it even and the wood I had chosen didn’t look aesthetically pleasing after being cut and assembled.

Modeling and creating physical visualisations of my ideas was the aim of todays lesson. I drew so many more technical drawings and even used fusion 360 to create a more 3D perspective of what I wanted the products to look like. I narrowed the 4 ideas I had down to two. I realized that the ideas I had were going to be really hard to make, as I learnt with the modeling I had done. They were really hard to manufacture, and thinking of this as a 2 week project, would not be feasible to create.

The modeling I started to do was very minuscule and used basic materials such as: styrofoam, balsa wood and a cut up t-shirt. I used glue to stick everything together, and modeling wire to allow for the chair head to move.

Another model I tried out was a model which could be hung on the wall and the base of the chair could be pulled down. This enhancing the idea of flat packing and space saving furniture. The issue I had with the model was that it wasn’t stable. I tried creating a chair leg that could rotate downwards from a slot that was cut into the chair base. However, after modeling the idea and discussing it with my tutors, the chair itself still didn’t offer a lot of support and wouldn’t be able to be manufactured easily, as I had imagined for many components to be created using a CNC machine.

Today marks the official start of the movement project for me (as I missed the first day). I had a lot of ideas in reference to the idea of a chair that could aid with movement, or moves to aid in communication. I was really inspired by the research I had done prior to the brief, and how chairs could become such a malleable and movable object in comparison to the stoic and solid form that has become a stereotype in my mind. 

My rough ideas were definitely very out of the box, and included the use of materials such as plastic that could be inflated and styrofoam beans. However, I felt that there were 4 ideas that definitely could be taken forward and developed further with the use of technical drawings and material testing. Now that I reflect back on it, the ideas I had were not as adventurous as I hoped they could be in terms of material, and instead mainly used plywood; but, they were definitely complex in the manufacturing methods. 

For example, a chair which could aid in communication between sibling who fight. It used this seat which could lean, and both people have to sit back to back to sit comfortably and hear each other talk and explain their side of the situation. It has bases made of plywood and is covered in cushioning. Originally it was going to be a floor seat, but after talking to the tutor, I tried to incorporate the idea of multi-purpose functions into the chair. I thought of ideas of the chair being sat upon a desk where books and toys could be stored, or it could hang and turn into a hanging bed, etc.