Last semester I received the E verdict which I was working for already from the start of the study. I had a successful group-project and created a music pen in my B2.1. Also the 2 group-projects I had before were successful and we received good feedback. This meant that the contrast with doing a project on my own was pretty big this semester.
My assessor gave me the following advice: I believe that the main point to focus on next semester is working on integration of your vision into your projects. Since I now have had the first change to do an individual project, I thought it was a good opportunity to do so.
The main learning goal by then was to develop the competencies Form and Senses and Ideas and Concepts, since I tended to make too literal translations from inspiration to a concept. I chose the project Everlasting Beauty because it was about using natural light as an inspiration source for artificial light.
It has been a crazy semester with a lot of stuff going on. First I want to mention that at the beginning of the semester I heard that my mother had breast cancer. A 10 hour operations followed, which luckily turned out to be successful. When she recovered we thought it was over, but we heard she had to do chemotherapy. Me, my brother and sister had to be at home as much as possible in order to cook, clean and do the laundry throughout the whole semester. Luckily last week Wednesday she had her last therapy which means her health will go better from now on. As you can imagine, this influenced the time I spend on the project.
Then there was also the Dutch Juggling Convention that I organised and would take place one week before the final Demo-Day. All my evening hours went into the realisation of this convention for the jugglers and didn’t leave much time for other extra activities.
Doing a Project on your own brought several challenges. There is nobody for who you have to be on time, you have to motivate yourself in harder periods and make sure your stick to your personal deadlines. I had a real struggle with the planning of my activities and know my project suffered from this. But at the last 3 weeks I figured out how to make sure I spend my time in a balanced way. I made a planning in which I divided my hours of the week on either my study, Dutch juggling convention or my company. In the end I’m satisfied that I managed to bring juggle all these activities and brought them to a successful end.
Already my coach warned our group that the B2.2 is the real test if you will are able to finish this study successfully. This is because you’ll have to be able to make enough hours for the Project on your own that comes from your own motivation. Also for me this was a real struggle because I had a lot going on. I’m glad that by the end of the semester I figured out how I could make sure to balance and maintain all my activities. I made an hour planning in which I divided my week and goals. A goal could also be to work for a certain amount of hours on the project. Also I learned how to avoid the harder times in a project where you don’t know what to do, by setting personal deadlines.
For the Project I was advised to choose a design process which I had to stick to. I chose for a iteration-based design process which means that your next prototype is an improvement of the one before that. I varied the amount of element I took from the last iteration by which I made sure I had explored all the possibilities and directions. Also I wanted a better documentation of my process by the use of video’s. For the organisation of the Dutch Juggling convention we also made a planning for the trajectory before the convention and during the convention. By this we made sure that all the task were well divided and balanced. For my Work as a graphic designer I had to figure out how the process would go together with an employee. It turned out that my instructions were very clear by which the process went really fast and we could develop a website within a week.
By organising the Dutch Juggling Convention I used some new ways to work with a team. This method of using the website Trello will be a technique I will use more in the future. For me it also hard to when something becomes too much for me. During the organisation I asked other people to take over task of me, which is something I normally would not do. By this I could focus more on the priorities I had and by this deliver a better quality. Because the Project was a solo project, I didn’t develop much further in this competency. Also the group I was in didn’t communicated with each other well even after hopeless attempts of me bringing the group together. I think the mind-set of all of us was to work individual and because of this we weren’t open for group work.
For the organisation of the Dutch Juggling Convention I had contact with over 100 people. It was very hard to keep the overview of who I answered and who not. Luckily it noticed that when I answered the incoming emails of phone calls right away, it was doable to make sure no appointments would be forgotten. The marketing campaign for the convention was also about communicating what would be happening at the convention by which I really had to emphasises with non-jugglers. In my assignment Intuitive and Aesthetic interaction it was also about what a product communicates by it appearance. If a product communicates the right message, you will more intuitively know how to use and even what the product is.
At the assignment Aesthetic and intuitive interaction really showed me how products are sensed. Even the smallest click, twist and texture is important in a product. It was a real eye-opener to experience every little detail of product in this way. Also this assignment showed me how important the form of a product is in order to make it intuitive to use. Nowadays more and more products become meaningless black boxes with a minimal as possible buttons. This makes them very unintuitive. My Project was also about sensing natural light in an artificial way. I really had to find the core qualities of natural light in order to understand how I could make artificial light sensible in the same way.
I had the goal in my PDP to become better at translating an inspirations source to a concept. A the past I made too literal translation by because of the Project I was able to research my inspiration source better and by this enabling me make this better translation. Also in my assignment we made this process of taking a stanley-knife as inspiration source and use its qualities to develop an alarm-clock. At other groups a saw a lot of literal translation and learned how this could be avoided and take to an more into depth level.
Here my Use learning-line course was very valuable. We really got hands-on theory about the marketing of a product but also investigating the needs of customers. As a virtual company we had to decide our next steps in order to stay in front of the competitors. Also in my own real company I had to deal with too much demand and had to figure out how to solve this. This resulted in my first employee. In my internship I’m really going into depth with this competency creating a franchise shop and really have to think about all the business processes.
The only competency I would like to develop further in the Project then I did this semester. In my project I should have spent more time on this, but I found it more interesting to improve the experience of the project. However in my USE learning-line Innovating by Design we did a co-reflection sessions with one of the elderlies. This was something I had never done before and now I understand the value of it. Normally when you try to validate the concept at a user, you push them already too much in a certain direction. With this method you don’t and get real usable feedback. In my assignment we also talked a lot about the intuitiveness of products and how this relates to how user use it. We thought about augmented, inherit and functional feedback and feedforward and how you could combine these in a product. Now I can use this to better validate a product and understand certain design decisions in order to make my own better.
By organising the convention I had contact with people from all over Europe and even the world. They had different rules concerning contracts and fees. In my internship I will develop this competency further, because it can became a shop that internationally opens. From the start I have to think about this and incorporate it in my design. Also some packaching will probably come China and we have to take contact with them. The father of my girlfriend already has some contacts with China for the delivery of LEDS. He also told me a lot about how this culture differs from ours and how they work over there compared to us.
For my Project I used low-fi prototypes to develop my concept. I explored different materials and what kind of rope I needed in order to get the best result. Also I made an 3D model of my project in order to see which arrangement would work the best. The goal for this semester was to not develop this competency any further, but of course it is part of the design cycle so because of this I will develop this competency.
I calculated how my Project would arrange the best and how I could remain a perfect balance. I checked this by making a 3D model of it in a physics program called Golems. Also as a treasurer for the Dutch Juggling Convention, I build a lot of estimation formulas in order to see if we would break-even as a convention. Also for this competency it wasn’t my goal to develop it any further because in my internship I will.
Next semester I will do an Internship at Smores, a chocolatier and pastry shop with a lot of awards. It might seem strange in the first place but I will create a franchise shop for one of their products macarons. The shop will be called “the Macaron House” which I have to developed down to the last detail. I see this as a huge opportunity since I see my future as a designer in helping starting companies to set up their business. At my internship I will have to think about budgets, interior, logistics, partners, brand image and probably a lot more I’m still not aware of. Together with Sebastien Trudelle from Smores and the interior design company Soons, I will realise this project so the shop could be built in 1 month. The chance of this shop becoming reality is pretty big and depends on the quality I deliver. I’m really curious where this will bring me and Sebastien is already speaking about dozens of shops throughout the country. It will give me the opportunity to do a project “in the real world” which is one of my goals. Also I put myself in a totally new and different context, which will help me to develop my vision. The internship offers the opportunity to do what I would like to do after my study in a controlled environment. More concrete goals can be read in my draft PDP.
