Urban Tribes - Final Presentation

The Urban Tribes project has finally reached a conclusion and while earlier on I may not have felt too inspired about the whole project, I'm quite pleased with my final product. At first I felt a bit skeptical about actually picking a tribe within society then doing research and making assumptions about the lifestyles of that particular group. While I still don't fully agree with the practice, I can definitely say that it's played a major role in the development of this project and all the earlier notes have given me something to refer to from time to time during the design process.

I've attached the posters which will be submitted for presentation along with the model below but for easier reading the text below comes straight from the posters.

The design is sculpted by both the metrosexual fashion and the metrosexual lifestyle. Similarly to metrosexual fashion, the product consists of layers, which individually are quite simple, however when pieced together form a more complex result.

Continuing with the idea of fashion, the colours of the wood used to construct the product, reflect the colours commonly found within the metrosexual wardrobe.

The magazine rack has the ability to contain five magazines. Enough for the modern metrosexual to keep up to date with current trends without cluttering their home with past issues.

Within the rack, the magazines each have their own position to slot in to when they're not being read."

Presentation Poster 1:

Presentation Poster 2:

Presentation Poster 3:

General Assembly Drawing:

CNC Routing Cutting Diagram:

Presentation Model:

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

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.