Product Design

Designers look for ways to make more MONEY
Continuous improvement - designers are always looking to improve their designs easier to use, more popular, it is the main reason why products evolve.
Manufacturers want products to be good to make money, be competitive, and to meet product standards.
Manufacturers redesign products in response to market pull or technology push.
Market pull is about what the customers want E.G. Changing fashion
Technology push is about what manufacturers can provide - Research and development departments are always coming up with new technologies materials, and manufacturing techniques. Using new technology makes a product more desirable by making it cheaper, better at its function, or nicer-looking. E.G. Computers started off very large, were able to decrease in size due to advancements in the microchip.
Product can also evolve for social or cultural need E.G. Trevor Baylis created the wind up radio so that as many people as possible in poorer countries could hear broadcasts that could prevent the spread of AIDS
Products can also evolve for political or environmental needs E.G. the rise of environmentally friendly, recyclable, products
Another form of product evolution is through the development of ideas.

Design movements are formed when lots of people have a similar approach to design.
Arts and Crafts - Founded by William Morris. Designs for wallpaper, furniture and textiles are often based on patterns found in nature. Furniture is upright and angular. Normally made by hand by skilled craftsmen.
Art Nouveau - Designs are flowing and curvy. Floral or insect motifs. Well known designers are Louis C. Tiffany and Rene Lique.
Art Deco - Inspired by African and Egyptian art. Bold colours, geometric, zig-zag, stepped shapes, bold sweeping curves, sunurst motifs. E.G. Chrysler building in New York.
Bauhaus - german founded by Walter Gropius. "Form follows function". Designed with function as starting point. Chrome tubing, black leather.
De Stijl - Dutch modernist. Basic, simple shapes, vertical and horizontal lines, primary colours. Piet Mondrian
Postmodernist - rejected form follows function idea. Memphis movement at height of design movement. Memphis has bright, contrasting colours and different materials. Other forms are Kitsch (Tasteless) and Minimalism (without decoration).

Human factors - Different people have different needs and values. Disabled People
Have to be taken into account when designing products for particular groups of people.
Braille labelling - gives information through sense of touch on packaging
Control buttons - have brightly coloured and large buttons makes them easy to find and press, telephone, remote control, calculator
Smoke alarms - fitted with visible light for deaf people
Instructions - contain diagrams aswell as words for people that cannot read
Wheelchair users - Access through ramps etc.

Cultural and religious values need to be thought about
Dietary needs - Muslims don't eat pork and Jews only eat kosher foods
Customs and celebrations - American thanksgiving celebrated with communal dinner, Hindu festival Diwali associated with lights
Cultaral ways of doing things - japanese people have lower tables to sit on the floor whilst eating.
Clothing styles - Women cant reveal clothing in some cultures
Colours have meanings - Chinese brides wear red dresses as it is thought to be lucky.

Age groups need to be considered
Different age groups - different physical limitations
small children and elderly people not able to manipulate small parts, have difficulty opening packaging or undoing fastenings
Elderly people may not be ble to hold or use products, large, easy gip handles, cutlery

Ergonomics - Making the product fit the user, about how easy and comfortable a product is to use
Size and proportions considered to fit user's needs E.G. Chair seat - needs to have right height, knees at right angle, suppot back in the right place.
Use body measurement data (anthropometrics) to make sure product is right size and shape
Badly designed - long term health impacts, eye strain, back ache

Anthropometric data used to suit most people in the target market E.G. Height anthropometrics used for office desk design
try to make "One size fits all" to make cheaper manufacture. Use 5% and 95% cut off points - people below these are not catered for
People below 5% or above 95% would need to get their products made by a specialist supplier or have products custom made.

Design process - process of designing and making something
Someone gets an idea for a new product => Decides to employ a designer to work on the idea
Person who hires the designer is the client
Client gives designer a design brief
Design brief -starting point for the development of the product
Includes
What kind of product is needed and why
How the product will be used
Who the product is for (The target market)

Designer needs to pick out important features of the design brief and lay out ideas on a mind map
mind map can be useful as it can show the key areas that need to be researched
The point of doing research - check that people actually want the product you want to make, find out what target market like/dislike about existing products so that you can make your product suit these needs, find out what materials, components and techniques that would be suitable for the product and how they would impact on cost.
Market research - Using questionnaires or interviews to find out peoples likes/dislikes. Helps to understand what target market wants from the product.
Product analysis - examining or taking apart an existing product to find out how it is made, look at it's good and bad features, size and weight of the product, sensory analysis - feels/smells etc
Gives a good idea of what materials and techniques need to be researched for product.
Need to draw conclusions from research
Summarise what what has been found out
Explain what impact it has on the final design of product
Use conclusions to create Design Specification
Design Specification - list of conditions to meet (design criteria), take account of research findings
Best written as bullet points, Each point is explained and shows how research helped to make those decisions.
Make sure to cover ACCESSFM

Design inspiration
Different approaches
Systems approach - Break down design process into different stages and doing each in turn
Empirical problem solving - using trial and error to develop design, making lots of prototypes and seeing which one is best then making more prototypes of that and developing product.
Intuitive design - Designers use intuition and experience to make a design knowing what will work and what won't.

Inspiration can come from patterns - grids and repeating shapes often used, e.g. fabrics have repeating pattern
simple geometric shapes used e.g. squares rectangles triangles circles

Inspiration from nature also
Can be used to design structure, function, and aesthetics
Structure - domes at Eden project, strong lightweight structure based on honeycomb
Function - Cats eyes on roads created because of way cats eyes reflect light in the dark.
Aesthetics - can look close up at a piece of nature and copy the shapes used, e.g. leaf shape used for jewellery

Mood board - collage of images, materials, shapes and colours. represents emotion of product.
Help trigger ideas by giving visual representation of what target market like
Images can come from magazines or photos, can use real materials to show texture
Can add notes

Colour
Dark solid colour - heavy mood
paler colour - lighter mood
Red and Orange - reminders of fire and the sun so are warm colours
Blues - associated with cold
Browns greys greens - neutral colours, calm and relaxation
Shiny metallic finishes - high quality, futuristic feel, may seem industrial, impersonal

	Created by Matt Cooper almost 9 years ago

Note on Product Design Notes, created by Matt Cooper on 21/01/2016.

Product Design Notes