In a Form development exercise at D School I am designing a mobile phone for an executive in the low rungs…mid level executive. I started out with an imageboard that comprised of 10-12 images that came out as a result of mapping various products on Mechanical-Organic and Simple-Complex axes. Now I have the 12 objetcs (watches, spectacles, chairs, perfume bottles) in my imageboard. They are consistent in their ‘visual’ language. NOW…HOW DO I CONVERT THESE INTO CONCEPTS THAT CONFORM TO THIS IMAGEBOARD.
Any example for me to go through…any leads would be soooo helpful
Its like Ferrari designers when asked to design lamps would design forms that still look ferrari signature…
I think that you have too few photographs maybe you shold get a lot more, then i suggest you to look at the colors, angles, forms, textures etc of the objetcs in the images, but it will not work whit 12 images… you’ll get a poor result
Actually i know this is part of the curricula of all D schoolm incl mine. What amazes me is that inspite of being the backbone of Aesthetics Exploration in the space of Strategic Product Development (where given your transition from imageboards to concepts is perfect, the quality and relevance of your designers’s imageboards is what decides how good your design is!), I cud not find much material on the web on this. It’s strange in a world where you can get virtually any tutorial/resource on web.
I started out with defining my segment and its users. Now I selected 5 categories of objects (eyewear, watches, shoes, perfume bottles and chairs) and mapped them on Simple-Complex, Mech-organic axis lokking JUST AT THE FORM, no CMP. in fact I made all the images grayscale so i make a purely form based mapping. Then I defined my user’s zone and pulled out 2-4 images from each category. Now I have say 20 images in my image board. Now it occurs to me there are two approaches
Look at them closely pull out curves from some, experiment…make something interesting…like billymenut said “easy way…sheet of paper and a pen…there´s no secrets…just you and these materials.”
2nd Approach would be to derive say 3 keywords that are common to all these images, (Cold, Smart Discipline, Steadfast) then sketch mobile phones and then map these in this imageboard and see whether my designs fit. Sketch-map-sketch-map…until you have three designs that echo these keywords.
Please lemme know your opinion on this…Also please lemme know if some one has researched on this throughly and if i cud get some case studies online…
Actually i know this is part of the curricula of all D schoolm incl mine. What amazes me is that inspite of being the backbone of Aesthetics Exploration in the space of Strategic Product Development (where given your transition from imageboards to concepts is perfect, the quality and relevance of your designers’s imageboards is what decides how good your design is!), I cud not find much material on the web on this. It’s strange in a world where you can get virtually any tutorial/resource on web.
I started out with defining my segment and its users. Now I selected 5 categories of objects (eyewear, watches, shoes, perfume bottles and chairs) and mapped them on Simple-Complex, Mech-organic axis lokking JUST AT THE FORM, no CMP. in fact I made all the images grayscale so i make a purely form based mapping. Then I defined my user’s zone and pulled out 2-4 images from each category. Now I have say 20 images in my image board. Now it occurs to me there are two approaches
Look at them closely pull out curves from some, experiment…make something interesting…like billymenut said “easy way…sheet of paper and a pen…there´s no secrets…just you and these materials.”
2nd Approach would be to derive say 3 keywords that are common to all these images, (Cold, Smart Discipline, Steadfast) then sketch mobile phones and then map these in this imageboard and see whether my designs fit. Sketch-map-sketch-map…until you have three designs that echo these keywords.
Please lemme know your opinion on this…Also please lemme know if some one has researched on this throughly and if i cud get some case studies online…
Its been said already, but there is no magic formula and there’s no tutorial online that can show you how to do this. At some point you’re going to have to draw.
Don’t be afraid to “fail” by putting out ideas, failures are a good thing, it makes the successes more convincing.
the moment you begin trying to pull a curve from this one or a material from that one you will just be going crazy.
i think you have to be aware of what makes a premium product a premium product, and what makes a low end product a low end product. the best way to understand this is to go into all different types of stores. maybe shop for something in particular. for example. if you are looking for a coat, go to Old Navy and look at their coats then go to Prada and look at their coats. The more types of products you do this with the more you will be able to trust your gut.
as i am maturing in design i notice myself saying things like, “that just doesnt look right” or “that radius is better than that radius” (make quick decisions). Before i thought this sounded uneducated, but i realize my best work now comes from times when i just trust myself.
I think image boards are nice at the beginning as you start to think about what feel you want, but I then put the image boards away. I will then just be copying the image boards.
I agree with david. You are not going to be able to create a good product based on image boards alone. Eventually you are going to have to dive in and do some observation, interviews, or other forms of research to find out what it is that makes the consumer tick. It is always great to surround yourself with imagery of what you are working on, we do it all the time here at work, but you need to look at the real thing in person to really get a feel for what the product is calling for.
This process even holds true for styling exercise which is what it sounds like you are doing. Here is a great example of a someone using the Mini’s styling for a hair dryer. http://www.coroflot.com/public/individual_set.asp?set_id=77447&individual_id=144860 Here you can see that Paul has taken all of the strong esthetics of the Mini brand and applied them to a hair dryer. This is NOT a hair dryer that looks like a Mini, more a hair dryer that reflects the minis brand. This should be the same with you. You should not create a product that looks like you style boards, but one that reflect the feeling and emotion that you are trying to portray.
The second approach doesn’t make sense. You’re talking about taking images (which speak a thousand words) and converting them to a few keywords, and designing from those? That totally defeats the point of doing an image board in the first place.
Just take your image board and hit the sketchbook! Enough said!
