Urban Tribes - Concept Generation Part 2

Sometimes inspiration can be hard to come by but that soon changed when I decided it would be best to force myself to mess around with some foam core and make a few models. Fortunately the results were successful until I ran out of foam core and sharp blades.
This led on to spending a day in the workshop with block of blue foam and plenty of time to experiment. The results were a heap of models which will hopefully prove helpful in the near future.

After spending a few days working on sketching out ideas on paper and in foam, I decided to spend some time modelling a few of my top concepts and rendering them to better understand what the result could potentially be.
This resulted in the four concepts shown below.

Concept 1

 Concept 2

Concept 3

Concept 4

Design on Show

The Design on Show project called for a visit to the Sydney Design Week exhibitions which were situated throughout the city. The aim of the project was to visit the design venues then to review and critique the exhibitions before communicating our thoughts on the venues through both writing and modelling. Below is both the written content from my submission along with images of the final A3 presentation.

Workshopped

Workshopped is currently in its 10th year of operation as a part of Sydney Design Week. Set up in the lower floors of Chifley Plaza, it’s displays the works of emerging designers and aims to help them make connections and create relationships with the rest of the design industry.
   
The works selected for the exhibition have all been selected in order to nurture emerging Australian designers. In order to be considered for the exhibition, designers had to respond to the proposition that “great design endures, demands attention and is fit for purpose”
   
As I walked around the exhibit it came to my attention very early on that many of the showcased works utilised the latest in both materials and manufacturing. In contrast to the Australian International Design Awards, which seemed to take a very technological approach, the workshopped exhibition seemed to be more focused on industrial processes used in the creation of the product
   
While the location and set up of the exhibition is obviously chosen to maximise exposure, in my opinion I feel it really doesn’t suit the works on display.  While I’d go so far as to say I find the majority of the works inspiring, I found the setting at the base of Chifley Plaza amongst a mass of lunch time conversation to be major distraction which at times made it hard to even concentrate on the surrounding works. The chaotic scene I describe however doesn’t end there. The fact that the lower half of the exhibit basically had two main functions: (1) Serve as a walkway; (2) Show of the Workshopped exhibition. For this reason, it often felt as though there was no way to escape the crowd and peacefully take in the exhibition
   
The Workshopped exhibition, to me has to be the most important of the exhibitions showcased as a part of Sydney Design Week. It showcases young talent and gives them the opportunity to show the can perform at a high enough level to impress the masses of not only design fans but even the people who happen to be making their way through the building and stop off at the exhibit along the way.

Australian International Design Awards

The Australian International Design Awards, like workshopped are help yearly as part of Sydney Design Week at the Powerhouse Museum. The exhibition showcases the works completed by graduates in their final year of university.   
Contrastingly to the designs selected for workshopped, the designs shown in the Australian International Design Awards are all the product of final year projects by university students around the country. The work displayed, unlike Workshopped, which has a focus on technology and manufacturing processes, seems to be more focused on innovation and the incorporation of new technology.
   
While the work within the exhibit is great to look at and learn more about as it’s something I’ll be engaging in during the coming years, I have to say that the exhibition as a whole really lack a soul and a presence. The exhibit is horribly small and cramped to the point that some of the works are nearly on top of each other, reaching out for a little bit more space. Unfortunately for the designers, the nothing more positive can be said in reference to the location of the exhibition within the museum. During Sydney Design Week, the markets filling the corridors all but block off and sight of the AIDA and if it weren’t for the fact that I’d visited the exhibit on previous occasions I would have found myself asking for directions. Unlike workshopped which is positioned in a busy place where people actually get to see the designs, the AIDA exhibition seems almost like a foreign territory to the paying customers of the Powerhouse Museum who casually stroll past it without knowing what they’ve missed.
   
While the setup of the exhibition may not accentuate what it has to offer, the products displayed really are what we can look forward to in the future. For viewers of the AIDA, the works are created by the young recently graduated designers who will be designing long into the future and continuing to turn out revolutionary technologies such as the LONGREACH Buoyancy Deployment System, which has the potential to save lives without putting the lives of others such as lifeguards at risk.

Urban Tribes - Concept Generation Part 1

Upon completing the process of profiling the metrosexual target market, the next step taken was to generate concepts for the market. Ones which will suit both their lifestyle and their beliefs. I began by researching the fashion of the metrosexual which involved examining what they wear from day to day as well as on special occasions such as nights out with friends.

What I concluded from this visual research was that while metro fashion usually involves simple pieces of clothing, they're layered one upon the other to form a more complex and more complete outfit. In terms of colours a lot of these layers seem to follow an earthy theme through the utilization of a lot of greens, browns and greys.

Once again, on the topic of fashion and going off previous research it became apparent that a lot of metrosexuals keep up to date and ahead of the pack in terms of the latest styles and fashion by reading magazines.

Concept 1 - Magazine Display Rack

This concept was one, which arose from researching the lifestyles of modern metrosexuals and analysing their choices in fashion. As previously mentioned, the fashion choices of metrosexuals normally involve layers of simple, plainly coloured clothes. One of the main contributors to these outfit choices are the magazines which play a big role in the metrosexual lifestyle.
This led to the design of a magazine rack which can be comfortably mounted and used on any wall within the home. To imitate the theme of layers and simple colours, layer cut plywood would form the minimal smoothly curved form of the product.



Concept 2 - Scribble Pad Watch Date Organiser

Similarly to concept 1, concept 2 also arose from analysing the fashion trends within the metrosexual tribe.
Often this urban tribe display their personal image not only through clothing choices but also by wearing accessories such as watches. This concept gives the consumer a way to use their watch more extensively by setting alarms from written memos or dates saved within their phone. Users can designate different watches to different occasions.

In order to look at place in the metrosexual home, the scribble pad would be constructed from white porcelain with sensors underneath to capture information received from the stylus marker and control the system.



Concept 3 - Single Handed Bowl

The third concept resulted from the need of a busy lifestyle. Metrosexual males are renowned for putting more effort into their appearance than the average male even when that requires an early morning wake up before work. This concept provides a simpler way for metros to move around their home while eating breakfast in order to use their time more efficiently in the morning. The matte finished wooden bowl and spoon can be carried around the house using one hand without the risk of spilling its contents.

Urban Tribes - Product Mapping

Urban Tribes. What is an urban tribe? Well, an urban tribe is a group of people  with a way of life which is not defined by geographic location or their heritage, but rather by their looks and lifestyles.

The aim of this project is to select a modern day urban tribe and to design a product to connect to the identity of the user in both a personal and communal way. The result should be one which has a soul and it's own special little place within the users chosen lifestyle.

The project began with the forming of groups of 4 people followed by some time to formulate which tribe we'd focus on for the remainder of the project time. After throwing around handfuls of different urban tribes varying from teen hipsters to flexecutives, we decided upon the Metrosexuals of todays society and began our research into all aspects large and small surrounding their lifestyle.

Our assignment for the first week of the project, was to investigate the lifestyle of the metrosexual and understand everything we possibly could about them. This was achieved through both creating a storyboard for a day in the life of a metrosexual as well as producing styleboards with the rest of the group to sum up a metrosexual in a few images. Both the styleboards and the storyboard are shown below.