I wanted to work with an image maker/visualiser. I tend to think of lots of ideas and see them in my head but find it hard sometimes to actually get them down onto paper. Working with someone with strong visualising skills was an attempt to help me learn to improve on this. Charlotte has very strong visualising skills and the thing I've learnt is probably to just spend more time doing it, it's easier to refer back to work when it's clear to begin with. I also wanted to work with someone who was a hard worker and committed to the brief, and this was definitely the case. Gaining confidence in image making was also another aim, I've spent more time on this brief than any other drawing so that's a positive. For submission we used illustrations from both of us, deciding on who's were most appropriate for what. I'm not sure whether or not I've been able to design something with more impact as our design was quite intricate so that's something I still need to do.

What are your specific areas of creative interest in this brief?

My own interests in this brief were designing for an environment, 3D illustration and producing something attention grabbing. We've developed our designs with the intention of it becoming 3D however we haven't actually made it 3D so I don't know how successful our assumption were. I plan to produce the shop front in 3D before module submission to see how well it works. Our interests in the brief were quite similar to begin with, we both wanted to design for a space and try something new.

What specific design skills do you have to offer in relation to your chosen brief? How do you intend to use them?

My design skills to offer were: Problem analysis, idea generation, craft skills, prototypes, photography, motion graphics. These were skills that we thought would be useful for producing a mock up for the shop front. The way we went with the brief resulted in me not using the majority of these skills. Idea generation was probably my biggest input, design wise. I used my knowledge of craft and motion to design the machine for the front of the window but communicated it through illustration rather than producing anything 3D. I spent a lot more time thinking about the problem, and how to approach it, working things out etc rather than actually producing mock ups. But that seems to have suited the partnership because Charlotte was able to visualise the inventions in a suitable way.

What specific non-design skills do you have to offer in relation to your chosen brief? How do you intend to use them?

Non design skills I specified as: organised, maintain communication, realistic goals, confident speaker. As a partnership we maintained communication well, we didn't necessarily work together very much towards the end during production but when it came to meeting up and talking through what we had, we both turned up and communicated well. After discussing our progress and what we had to do we would make plans of what needed to be done, who would do it and when it would need to be done by. As well as being reliable and organised, Charlottes skills for documenting and secondary research were very apparent. These are two areas which I tend to forget to do sometimes and the fact she was doing it made me do it too, until I got into the habit of it. So this is definitely an area I've improved in. I was happy to present our work during crits and Charlotte would then help me answer questions about the work.

what will your specific responsibilities be in the collaboration in relation to your brief?

My responsibilities were to scan in any notes/work and make sure we both had copies, budgeting our money, digital filing and booking times. There wasn't a lot of budgeting to do because we only printed the boards and everything else was drawn. I think we both managed to stick to our roles throughout the brief, and it made it easier to keep track of things.

What will your joint responsibilities be?

Initially we said that we would both be responsible for:
storyboarding, problem analysis, concept, idea generation, presentation boards, scaling, type, tag lines, materials/stock, action plans, target setting, self crits

We didn't actually have to do storyboarding in the end, although I sort of did for the motion of the machine. Everything else we did together.


As a collaborative partnership I think this has been the most successful I have had. We had an equal work share and I was confident that Charlotte would produce what she said she would. We communicated well; both when we were and weren't together. I learnt a lot about the design process, and learnt a lot about other ways of working which I will be able to take on board when working on my own. Working with someone who is keen to use contextual research was also beneficial because this is a weak area of mine which needs improving. As well as identifying areas that I need to improve on, I also managed to identify strong areas of my design process, for example defining a concept and problem analysis. Charlotte has very strong image making skills and so next time I collaborate it might be beneficial to work with someone who has strong type and layout skills so that I can learn from them.

Boards Draft 1

We designed these boards for submission initially, but they were too busy and so we redesigned them, having to leave off some of the content. The final boards were printed on bulky newsprint, to further the idea of patent applications.

Planning the Boards

The Give-aways

Ted Baker specified that give-aways were important. Our idea is to have a limited edition bag that is given away with purchase. Also to have one of our inventions actually produced and given away. The finger cutlery is to be given away as the gift.

Our final logo. Charlotte developed the logo, and then brought in several parts to it. Then we both worked together to put the final one together.

Final Design for Shop Front

Pendulum swings


Ramp lies flat and marble rolls onto surface


Ramp tilts from weight and marble rolls off, onto the spring which compresses



The conker that is positioned on the spring is let loose and starts of a *newtons cradle*

The conker knocks the fan, which turns and pushes over a tin can


This in turn knocks over more cans


The cans push a button which starts the train moving round the circuit

The train flicks a switch

The light bulb turns on. Simple.



This is the final drawing for the machine to go into the shop window. The space in the right hand corner is for a vinyl sticker of our logo. I've also drawn each of the sections of the machine to show how they move. We're planning to show these on the boards as well in the style of Fig1, Fig2 etc...

Some really quick plans on how to seperate the different elements of our work onto the three boards. Can't really plan too far ahead until I see what drawings Charlotte's finished for inside. I'm pretty pleased with what we've come up with, not sure how the people at Ted Baker will react to it but I think we've been having fun with it at least.

Development of final machine

I'm trying to work out a machine that you can understand face on. And that is more portrait so that it can be scaled to fit windows by adding to its surroundings rather than worrying about scaling down the actual machine.




This shows what the final window might look like with a sample of the wall paper to go behind. We want the machine to be made from card and timed, rather than actual objects so it could work quite well against a bright background colour.



Trying to clarify points of the design so that it works/so that I understand how it functions more.



My action plan for the hectic weekend ahead.



Again more sketches of me trying to work things out.





An altered version of the previous machine,



Showing the movements of the machine as a whole and as sections. The final drawings are now complete and will be uploaded shortly.

We've also decided since our crit to have our boards in the style of patent applications/inventors drawings. So instead of mocking the designs up in the shop windows using vectors or photos the context designs will be drawn and detailed as though parts of the inventions.

I also started to visualise some of these smaller inventions. I'm pretty sure I would use all of these in my day to day life.

I was struggling to come up with more machines so I started to think about what small tasks I do during the day. I was clearly uninspired and didn't really come up with anything. A quick chat with Charlotte though resulted in us coming up with a few ideas for stupid inventions. If you can't read the list it says:
Finger nail spoons, cutlery belts, eyebrow hair dryers, envelope tongue, window wipers for glasses (although I think they already exist?), double hook hangers, poppers (buttons not drugs) disguised as laces, wearable armpit sprays, hairbrushes fitted to pillows/doorframes.
Charlotte's going to visualise some of these and they should be on her blog.

Revolutionary entertainment system

Using a system of ramps, balls, leavers, wheels, springs, funnels, pointy sticks etc this handy machine will, on command, move your newspaper out of your vision and turn on the TV for you. I actually think that being sat in the middle of this machine would be quite traumatising.


Again with this one, I'm not sure how well it would be understood in 3 seconds. Probably not at all.

Th secret to winning come dine with me

After the crits, the general consensus was that going down the route of inventions was much more interesting so I've spent the week trying to become an inventor. We looked for some bizarre inventions that already existed but none really seemed appropriate for a shop window display. So we continued thinking of our own ridiculous inventions. Looking at the work of Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg was really useful and confirmed what we wanted to do was possible.

We've divided the work between us so that I produce the imagery of the main machine for the window and Charlotte can produce the imagery for inside the store. This is because I was more confident in coming up with something mechanical and thinking about motion, and Charlotte was more confident with producing the illustrations of static inventions.




Here I've tried to think about chain reactions, making use of some English inventions and some other recognisable objects. It's really challenging to try and work out what would happen in different situations. Trying to get into this way of thinking has probably been the most difficult thing. The idea's are there but working out whether they would work delays the process so much. Also thinking about how they would be implemented in real life puts a lot of restrictions on what can be done.

Here are the plans for a machine that will make your sandwiches for you. I imagine so much time could be saved using this contraption, I don't understand why they aren't commonplace in kitchens already? Anyway, the basis for the inventions we're proposing is, overly complicating simple tasks/actions. Mainly stuff that people aren't really bothered about doing in the first place. But why do it when a machine can do it for you.




I'm enjoying drawing these things, but I'm unsure how clear they'd actually be in a store window. And how well they'll be understood.

Some initial ideas for compliment slips:

Some drafts for business cards, I really struggled with this but am starting to progress in a direction that I'm a bit happier with.

The feedback we got from the crit was really useful and made us much more enthusiastic and confident about the brief. We've decided to work more on the idea of inventions. Over the weekend I'm going to be working on the main set for the window display and Charlotte is going to be designing in-store material.

Inventions

I think I've been focussing on the wrong angle, looking more into upper class society when really what made our concept strong was looking at what made Britain, Britain. And to the majority of the population being upper class is not it. So I've gone back to the idea of looking at British achievements, sports, inventions. Listed above are a number of inventions from Britons. I've then started to think about how they can be shown in a humouress way. I don't like the image of the guy in the scuba kit, I don't find it very engaging. The other sketch is much more interesting to me. I've used a number of the smaller inventions and combined them in a much larger operation which succeeds in turning a light bulb on. This stems from the point of view that Britons are very good as stuff that no-one cares about. So this overly complex machine illustrates the cleverness but pointlessness angle.

Experimenting with drawing characters and emphasising facial features.

Another idea of imagery to be used for the bag, I liked this initially because it reminded me of the carry on scene, on my design context blog, but to be honest I think it's boring. And the play on words is pretty typical of Ted Baker and I don't actually think it's funny.

Considering how type could be applied to the window or to bags, the phrase is supposed to reference the fact that all the information about British history has been made up, however it's probably more likely to suggest that Ted Bakers new collection isn't all it's been cracked up to be. Don't think they'd be too fond of this idea...

Anyway, message aside, the style of type might be a possible direction to go in.

Some sketches of ideas, I was considering making up lies about British history and representing it as fact. Using the Upper class society of the past as a context for these lies.

Ted Baker Proposal

We took this information and pitched our concept. It seemed well received, and it as suggested that since we mentioned that one of the best things about British humour is the ability to take the piss out of ourselves that we should play on this more, and radicalise it. Perhaps to the extent of taking the piss out of Ted Baker itself.