Design of simple products for real-life complexities and business interests. The success will be determined via actual introduction of a product into the market. The student will go from a brief to actual test marketing of products and gain hard, real feedback from customers. We shall achieve this by ‘batch-manufacturing’ via rapid prototyping.
We may choose to redesign an existing product or create a product for an existing value chain (e.g. dustpan, cable-manager, shoe-brush). Research and study will cover user needs, business interests, market, competition, customer behaviour, manufacture, packaging, distribution, logistics, retail… Everything!
The aim is appreciation of real-world complexities. However, the studio will remain within the responsibilities of an Industrial designer.
Understanding business interests, users, markets and competition (~4 weeks). Analysis, synthesis, redefined brief (~1 week). Ideation, concept generation (~2 weeks). Models and concept validation (~2 weeks). Finalisation / refinement, detailed design and final model (~2 week). Manufacture of ~5 samples (~1 week). Primary packaging, retail POP design and manufacture (~1 week). Costing and price discovery, sale of product and customer feedback (~1 week).
