Hey all,
This semester has begun and I’m working on my studio class and would love to hear some feedback! A little background on where I’m at:
I’ll be graduating in December of this year, and you can see some of my previous work here: Behance
I interned at Under Armour in Footwear Innovation during Summer 2014, and at Enlisted Design in Oakland during Summer 2015. I’m aiming for a final internship this Summer at a top consultancy in SF. I’d like to be at studios such as Fuseproject, Ammunition, MNML, Matter and Artefact to name a few.
In my portfolio I think I’m missing a project with strong making and prototyping in the process and a high fidelity model/product. I also lack any sort of branding exercises that I see in a lot of the top student portfolios.
New Softgood Design Project
Background:
I often see people on the bus and I myself have experienced lugging around both a backpack and a gym bag on the bus or around the city, and I’ve found two main problems when observing and talking with people that have this experience.
- Lugging around both a gym bag and a backpack in a crowded bus or Bart train is a hassle.
- Fitness in itself takes willpower, and if someone dreads packing/carrying their gym bag around it may threaten their consistency in going to the gym.
- There’s a disconnect between fashion and function in the realm of gym bags
I created a short deck to highlight some of my high level thoughts and opportunities.
I’d love to hear some of the board’s thoughts moving forward into ideation this week. I think there’s opportunity in this project to create a final high fidelity prototype (in the process of practicing my sewing) and creating a brand identity and possible visual design language.
One of my big concerns is attacking this project in a way that it doesn’t become ‘another bag’ so I’d like to break the mold here and push the boundaries of this market and consumer. I also think the key here is targeting a specific type of consumer (down to what they do in the gym and what they carry) and focus very heavily on their specific needs rather than aiming at a broad audience. I have this consumer pretty dialed in but I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing what you all think!
Aaron