Materials

For Key Covers

I need a material which is elastic, so it won't be easily broken. At the same time, it has to be easy to clean, as the users are going to touch the braille letters on the key covers all the time. The first material pops up in my mind is the one on my phone case. My phone case is made by silicon, which has a smooth texture.

In order to know more about silicon, I have searched a video called "How to make an Silicone Phone Case". It shows we can mix some construction silicone with a little potato starch to make a DIY phone case. The result is the silicone phone case is very elastic.

The video I have mentioned, you can see how elastic it is.

For Watch & Wallet

I have thought about using silicone to make the watchband, however, it is not the best idea. Considering people would sweat a lot in summer, silicone may not be comfortable to wear. Now, I think leather may be a better choice for watchband or even wallet.

I am going to search different kinds of leathers, and see which one is easier to clean and more comfortable. I will go to Leicester Market to seek for different textiles and leathers.

Research - What Do Visually Impaired People See?

In order to know more about how do the visually impaired people feel in daily lives, such as how does it look like when I lost my sight, I am going to do some research on it. Now I will show my research and my feedback on it.

 

Source 1

When we try to imagine how does it look like to be blind, we will use our 'imagination' to guess what it might be. As we have the concept of different colours and scenes in our minds, we might think that blind people are experiencing darkness. The article from NAUTILUS (source 1) points out that visually impaired people actually have no concept of black. "The blind, too, use their senses such as hearing and touch, to form representations of the world", meaning they are more sensitive to other senses.

Another article from BBC News interviewed Damon Rose, a BBC journalist, who completely lost his sight as a child. He lost his sight due to an ill-advised surgery. He is diagnosed as no light perception. "Though I've had the cord cut between my eyes and my brain, it seems that the world has not turned black." he said, "The rest of my field of vision is taken up by squashed geometric shapes, squiggles and clouds I couldn't hope to describe - and not before they all change again anyway. Give it an hour, and it'll all be different." For him, what he sees is not dark, but light. Even he closed his eyes, the lights never go away.

Source 2 (From the description of Damon Rose)

Whatever the visually impaired people see, they are not able to receive an entire image from sight. They have to rely on other senses like touch and hearing, so it is important for me to think about the textiles I may use for the major project.

Source 1: What Do Blind People Actually See? 
Source 2: Do Blind People Really Experience Completely Darkness

Learn How to Use Photoshop

As I have to use Adobe Photoshop CC to create design boards for my major project, I have to learn some basic skills about it.

I am going to watch some tutorial videos provided by Adobe on the Learn & Support page.  Today I decided to watch Create your first design and I will try once on my own. I will post every process on this post. 

I seldom use Photoshop, so I do not know much about it. I want to start with learning how to work with layers.

First of all, I have to find one textile picture and one wallet picture from Google Search for testing.

Source:
Picture of Wallet
Picture of Textile



I opened three files, one is an A4 blank page and the other two are the pictures I need. 

Then, I duplicate the images to the A4 file. I found that the pictures are too small, so I changed their size. 

Now I have three layers. The 'leather' layer must be under the 'wallet' layout.

Right click the layer I want to duplicate

As the background of 'Wallet' layer is white, it completely covers the 'Leather' layer. I have to   change its opacity. I found that 55% is the best effect I want.

Changing the opacity

Now I am erasing the leather which is out of the wallets. 

I changed the size of the eraser.

I have to zoom in so I can look at the detail parts and do better.

This is how it looks like.

I want to add grey and orange colour to the zipper, so I am going to create a new layer which is below the "Leather" layer.

The final piece

I found it is very useful for me, especially I have to design my products with two materials. It would help the reader understand about my design. The problem is whether I should scan my sketching to the computer and do Photoshop or draw my design with Digital drawing tablet. Since I have no experience of using Digital drawing tablet, it would be challenging and time-consuming. With no doubt, it would be better to use Digital drawing tablet, but I need to make a better time management.

Critical Feedback on Blog and Webite

Due to my absence from Digital Arts lesson last week, I did not do my presentation of my website to my classmate. Hence, I did not receive any feedback. I am going to ask my blog buddy Sujin to give me some comments on my website and blog. Also, I would do a reflection to criticize my work.

Digital Arts - Critical Feedback Form

Blog

1. Does the blog reflect the progression route of the student?
    Yes / No

2. How much research has been included on the blog and does it relate to the work?
   Very detail. Especially she did many research about major project.

3. How many Posts there?
   15

4. Is there writing and reflection present that explains the work and reflects upon the work completed?
    Yes. She has. But she still need to add more reflection.


5. Has the major project plan been uploaded and discussed on the blog?
    Yes / No
    She has very clear plan about major project.

6. Has the major project been started and research carried out for it on the blog?
    Yes / No
    She has posted many posts about major project. very detail.

Website

1. Is the website complete and ready for major project to be uploaded?
    i.e. Does it include Home Page, About Page & Gallery?
    Yes / No

    If not complete what is missing or needs completing?
    But she need to change the photo.

2. Is the site easy to navigate?
    Yes / No
    It's very easy to find her works.

3. Is the progression route of the student clear?
    Yes / No

4. Does the site look welcoming and make you want to visit it?
    Yes / No
    I like home page. It looks very simple and charming.

5. Any other comments?
    No.

My Own Reflection

For my blog, I did reflect upon the work completed. In the beginning, I did not do much about reflection. the first few works should have done more reflection, as they were more descriptive than reflective. Then I have tried to work harder in doing reflection and I think I have improved, however, I think it is not good enough, a further reflection would make it better.

I did some research for my major project on the blog and explained about how does it related to my work. In the coming days, I am going to do more, in order to let the readers understand my work easily.

For my website, I have completed Home Page, about Page and Gallery. Yet I have to change my background picture in the future. As those are the pictures I took randomly, I am going to put my sketching which is related to my progression route product design. Although my blog buddy thinks my progression route is clear, I think it is even better to put my sketching or design of products in the background to show my progression route.

My Individual Project Plan

I am going to explain more about my idea on my individual project.

First of all, I am going to design three products for visually impaired people: a wallet, a watch and some covers for keys. 

Why do I want to design products for visually impaired people?
In my last few years in Secondary school, I got involved in a lot of volunteer work, such as taking care of the elderly and mentally disabled children. I would like to know more about them and design some products makes their lives easier. Therefore, I choose to design products for visually impaired.

The products I am going to design are a wallet, a watch and some covers for keys.

Mindmap which helps me to brainstorm further

The reason I want to design these products:

1. Wallet
As I have mentioned in the previous post, I am inspired by a Hong Kong product design student. She designed a wallet especially for visually impaired people to check the banknotes. Since she has spent a lot of time with them, she knows the difficulties they are facing in daily lives. I wish to make a new one which is even more convenient and better. Therefore, I am thinking to design one which can check U.K. banknotes and coins.

2. Watch
I have done some research recently. I found that visually impaired people have a hard time  checking the time, as it is not convenient to check their time by audio ones. Then, I did some research on watches for blind people. In the coming days, I am going to design a watch which can be user-friendly to visually impaired people. However, the problem is I do not really know much about them, such as the difficulties or inconvenience they are facing. Thus, I am going to do more research and ask my friends who are working as social workers and hope to see whether I can get a better understanding.

3. Key covers
I was thinking what else can I design for the people who lost their sight or have some vision problems. I tried to think about what would we normally do or use in daily lives, then the image of keys popped into my mind. Some keys look similar and even for non-disabled people sometimes would find it is hard to classify all their keys. Hence, I would like to design some covers for keys, so the target customers would find it a lot easier to get the right key and make the process a lot more convenient.


My individual project plan:

1. Design each product with two different materials
My target market is visually impaired, which means they are more sensitive to tactile sense. I would consider the texture of materials used for my product, to make sure it is easy to clean and comfortable.

2. Draw on the paper, then I would use Adobe Photoshop to make a design board
In this moment, I would draw a graph of each design, then I would try to use Photoshop to draw the final design and make a design board.





Things I have to do within this week:
1. Research on visual impairment
2. Watch Photoshop tutorial
3. Draw graphs of my design

As time is running short, I have to catch up the speed, especially I do not know much about Photoshop, it is going to take more time to try and learn how to use it. I will keep updating my process on my blog.

New update on my website

Recently, I have changed my website. To begin with my text colour in the homepage, I changed my name (Janis Chan, product design student) from blue and black to blue and green. The reason is the products I would like to create in major project are going to be blue and green. I am trying to make my products identical, once the others see the products, they would know that are designed by me.

Besides that, I also added my own pictures to the background. I will change them in the future.

Homepage

Homepage

Apart from the homepage, I modified my biography. After talking to my teacher, she suggested me to add few more things into my biography:

1. Inspiration of being a product designer (any designer/books)

2. Reason of being a product designer (ecologic? convenient?)

Therefore, I tried to talk more about myself in the biography. I will improve it in the future.

Also, I put my picture on my website in order to let the visitors know more about me. I added an animation on my picture, it would flip-in when people scroll down to the picture. The reason I did it is to make it more lively and interesting.

Biography

Besides that, I changed the layout of showing my works. The one I picked is more user-friendly, as the selected picture is bigger than the others and all the pictures are shown there.

Work

Product Designer's Website Research

homepage

Today I searched a product company's website because I wish to find some inspiration to improve my website. 

ZURB is a product design company. They put a slogan and a short description of their company on the homepage. Compared to mine, I put my name and my identity only. Then scroll down a little bit, there is a welcome sentence on my website. It is the same with ZURB's.

welcome sentence in ZURB

In the same page, they classify their work in 4 different fields. Moreover, there are some other contact ways like youtube, twitter, facebook and email. On my website, I also put my blog and Google+ in the bottom part of the homepage.

Bottom part of the homepage

Overall, I found that the webpage design is simple and clear. The colour tone is cool colour- white, grey and blue. There is one thing on this website I really like- the background of the homepage is actually a 30-seconds video which you can play it by clicking the button "ZURB in 30 seconds". It helps visitors to know a bit more about their company.


After visiting ZURB website, there are two main things I want to change on my website:
1. The font of text
2. Design an unique logo