Video reflection for How it's made and Giving packaging a new life

How it’s made

After watching the few videos about how various packaging are being made, I find the tetra pak and cardboard more interesting as I have less knowledge about how it’s being made. The use of machining in producing these packages and the level of details that are needed to be considered in each step of manufacturing packaging is really quite interesting. The amazing amount of cardboard boxes that can be manufactured in an hour and the quality of printing that it can be done. I realized that packaging these days can easily be manufactured with high quality printing, like the tetra pak for example uses a 6 layer printing, which allows sharp and accurate colour prints. The use of materials in packaging now-a-days is mostly recyclable like glass bottles which can be recycle endlessly. A lot of packaging manufacturers are able to recycle the materials in order to minimize waste produced, like the aluminium where circles are stamped out for the can and the cut outs are all being recycled.

Giving packaging a new life

Giving packaging a new life is about how each type of materials are being recycled. I am quite amazed by how a lot of packaging is being recycled and how these recycled materials are being reused as a raw material just like the brand new raw materials. I find it really interesting how plastics now have a lot of machining which will be able to sense which plastic is which instead of having to have workers doing it manually. This decreases a huge amount of time that will be needed to filter and group plastics together. I think technology now-a-days has helped a lot in helping recycling. The most amazing part I would say is the Sorting Innovations video which mentioned about this huge place that has all the machines sorting out the rubbish, grouping appropriate plastics together and metals in their own group. I think having a lot of these places will increases the recycle rate around the world. One thing I also find really interesting is that how materials like plastics can be recycled in a way that it can be cleaned and reused again just like a new plastic. Same as the glass bottles how they are being recycled and used the same way they were being used as its previous life. 

I think as an industrial designer now, we have to really consider how we design products and carefully choose materials that are more eco-friendly.

Assignment 4 - Universal Design - " The liveable Bathroom"

Assignment 2 - South Cross Packaging Design Awards

Brief

Brief C is chosen for this project from the nine briefs given by the South Cross Packaging Design Awards

Research

Initially, research was done on the various types of six-pack packaging on the internet and also existing products. From the research it was found that six can beverage packs at the moment are all similar, not much difference between companies except for the graphics.

Target market, and retailers

The target market for this product is university and college students as there is a strong demand in this group, students usually buy it to keep them awake for studies.

There will be 3 types of retailers that this product is going to distributed to:

- Gas stations, as drivers might want to buy drinks that can keep them awake while driving for a long distance.

- Convenient stores, the most convenient way of getting accessed to this product, target market will be able to buy it anytime.

- Supermarkets

Ideas

Generating some ideas and figuring out what kind of problem there is that this packaging should solve. Around 20-30 ideas are generated and 4 ideas were chosen to draw on A3 and 3 of them are made into sketch models.

The four ideas are:

- A triangle prism shaped six pack for energy drink that has a rectangle cut out on each edges of the triangle, triangle shapes gives a sign of caution and that it makes it look more powerful as a energy drink and also it’s denoting to the consumer that the energy drink is really strong

- A six pack for beer bottles, where the whole packaging is made with one sheet and is really convenient to unwrap, with a comfortable handle for consumer to hold onto.

- A hexagon shaped packaging which clamps the top of the beverage can on to the bottom of the cardboard which makes it convenient to take out when the consumer wants a can of drink and also saving a lot of material

- A square shaped six packs which can be opened into two triangles where consumer gets to access the beverage. A more innovative kind of opening

The triangle prism shaped six –pack is chosen to go onto development. Things that needed to be taken into account during the development are the way consumers get access to the product and if the content can be seen through the parts of the packaging.

Development

Thinking of different types of ways the consumer can access the packaging, two concepts was chosen from around 20 of them, the two concepts are:

- One that has a rotation on one of the corners of the triangle prism, which will allow access to the energy drink one by one with a handle that can be pulled out at the top or hidden from in one of the hole

- The other concept has a side with has smaller width which allows the energy drink to be seen and a longer length which goes through the top of one of the triangle edge and turns into a handle, if the consumer want to access it, they’ll just have to pull the handle out of the hole.

Name is an important part which gives the consumer a feeling of what kind of drink the six pack stores. Different type of names were experimented to make sure it does not give a feeling of something else, at the end the name ‘Caute’ is used, it has a meaning of Caution, and it also gives a quite strong feeling to the consumer.

Different types of typeface are experimented to see if it fits the style of the packaging and the style of caution. Around 20 typefaces are tested on an A3 sheet with the name Caute to see which name is more eye catching and gives a powerful feeling. The typeface that is chosen is called Concielian.

Can design is one of the additional thing in this brief which I think will strongly enhance the feeling of the packaging as the six –pack will have parts where the can will be seen. 10 ideas on the can design was made to make the whole design more “Caution” like.

Existing energy drinks are brought to get a measurement for the six-pack design.

Models

A lot of models are made in order to get the best dimension for the six cans to fit well into the package.

Final product

In order to make the packaging stick more to the idea of caution, graphics is added and features of the design are changed.

- A dark blue colour with textures around the whole triangle prism with a yellow triangle at the front of the package that has a cut out of a smaller triangle showing the energy drink inside.

- At the top of the six-pack, there is a triangle where it can be tear open to get accessed to the energy drink.

2011 Assignment 1 - Sheet Material

In this Assignment, we have to use a sheet material to make a product. I started off choosing the material that we can choose from I chose polypropylene and started researching on different types of existing products that are made with polypropylene and chose to make a hanging organizer. Generating pages of ideas, make sketch models.

After confirming the idea, I start developing on the idea, the tabs on the polypropylene, refining the shape and had ended with this final product.

(Presentation)

(Organizers in different colours)

(The transparent hanging organizer)

Peer Comments on project 2

Shenea Huang
Wesley Chiang
James Lee
Huan Xie

Wei Qian Wen

Project 2: Upcycling Unwanted

For this project, the first thing I needed to do it to find a type of waste which can be redesigned and will still give an interesting aesthetics. At first, I bought some stove knobs, but after the first lesson, I realize that is not the type of waste we are trying to use as the knobs are still functional if installed onto the stove.

I then chose to use keyboard keys, I got a lot of keyboard keys and started putting them together to see what I kind of shapes or forms can be formed, I came up with two kinds of grouping the keyboard keys after a few days. One way was to put them in a circle with the words facing inwards and hold it together with rubber bands, the other way I came up with was putting keys in a group of 5 to form a cross shape.

After showing the ways that I came up with to the tutors, I got comments on how I should use the keyboard keys so that the keys should have the words facing outwards as then it will be visible and people will know what it’s made from. Also from some tutors, they think that the use of rubber bands is pretty good and I should try testing on using rubber bands to connect the keyboard keys together.

After testing ways of using rubber bands with the cross shaped keys, it didn’t really worked out because when the shapes are being held together with rubber bands, rubber bands actually pulls the cross towards the opposite way of how I wanted it to form.

I decided to try using wires to connect the crosses together, after doing two connected cross in that way, I showed it to the tutors and was told to use a less visible colour wire, so I went to buy a black jewellery wire to connect them together.

I started off doing my final product by rearranging the 30 crosses into different shapes and see which way it will look the most interesting, after some time of thinking, I came up with this kite shape as a fruit plate. .

With the shape decided, I started gluing the keys together to make crosses and removing the double sided tape from before. Afterwards, I start drilling holes on the keys where the crosses meet so that the side keys will not have any holes and will keep its aesthetics. Then I start tying the crosses together with wires. For the base, I used the idea of circles to hold the whole fruit dish up.

Design For Life

A TV show about a group of chosen designers getting a chance to work for Philippe Starck, one of the most famous product designers in the world at the moment in his company for 6 months. Starck gives out challenges to the chosen designers and see how they think and design. And after each challenge, the two designers that Starck thinks is the worst will have to leave.

‘When you design, you don’t think of design, you think about life.’ The first challenge that was given to the designers was to buy two products from a market with 100 Euros. They are to buy two products that show function or ecology or gender. I think this exercise really shows how the designers think, how far they think. From what I see and think. I liked how Nebil explained the products that he bought from the market. He bought a joystick as male for the gender and the multiple sockets as the female. In every designed product, there is a gender in it which makes it look more attractive to a certain gender. I think the reason why Starck thinks that Mabil did the best is because he actually explains how the form of the product itself gives out a female / male feel.

The second challenge task that was given to the designers is to design a product that benefits humanity, without any other information, I think this challenge is really hard as it gives the designer free range in designing whatever they want. Although I think it is really fun to design stuff without any constrain, but because there are no constrain, it is really hard to start off with and it’s really hard to know what Starck expects from them. I think the best way to get ideas are from walking around the street or going to museums to see what people needs, need to know what the target market lives. I think what Nebil did, sitting there just getting ideas out of his brain is not such a good way to create a new product. I also learnt that when presenting your product, everything you do should be well considered like what you wore should not have any conflict with what message your product is showing like what Elsa did.

Going onto the third challenge, they were told to design a product that is ethical, ecological, democratic, for daily use and is non electronic. I think it is important to know everything you needed to know before starting design, like how they all are not sure what the first draft should have and the presentations seems to be really unclear. And I think how Starck thinks that letting them going in a group will normalize the standard for everyone.

I realize it’s really important to know how the target market lives, how they interact with products that you are designing. Like how Mike who is designing a product for blind people, he blind folds himself for the whole day in order to let him feel what it’s like to be blind.

The designers were brought to a branding company and comments are given to their product names and design, the branding of the product is actually really important, it gives information on your product. I think how they did let their target market to choose the logo and name is a good thing to do.

After watching how Ilsa present, I learnt that when presenting, you should make your presentation as straight forward as possible, so that it won’t confuse the client or make him feel bored.

I really liked how the prototype is being made and looked so nice like Ilsa’s product.

When designing a product it is important to make sure that the design can be manufactured. Or else if you get to the manufacture point and you realize it cannot be manufactured or the material is way too expensive, then you’ve failed to design.

No matter how good the product is the advertisement is really important to sell your product.