Occasionally you get a project that drives you mad and for that reason I am going to document this one in full in all its agonising steps as an example of how tenacity will produce a result that you are relatively proud of.

The Brief :- To liaise with a dye sublimation company (Sublitech) to produce a show give away (D&T Show 2009) that can be produced on our machines as people watch, dry assemble and take advantage of the printing process.

Having had a provisional meeting with Sublitech it was apparent how powerful dye sublimation printing is and how it's use can radically lift the end product.

Sublitech particularly wanted to show how they could print double sided on 3mm mdf.

So now the head scratching started, what could I make from 3mm MDF that would be colourful, fulfill a function within the classroom so that it remained on show, advertising our joint companies.

This angst must be what every corporate giveaway designer wakes up with every morning.

So having recently been at a symposium for innovation by Herman Gyr and Lazlo Gyorffy (World specialists in innovation) from Stanford University, I decided to apply their control techniques to the design process.

One of their tools for innovation is an acronym - COSTAR

C - Customer

O - Opportunity

S - Solution

T - Team

A - Advantage

R - Result

C.O.S.T.A.R. is valuable in controlling the overall task in corporate terms it ensures that the right decisions with regard to moving a process / product from drawing board to market.

I have also used the A.C.C.E.S.S.F.M acronym tool in the past prior to my introduction to C.O.S.T.A.R. ::: A.C.C.E.S.S.F.M is targeted at the product itself helping make decisions about poignant aspects of the design.

A - Aesthetics

C - Customer

C - Cost

E - Environment

S - Size

S - Safety

F - Function

M - Material

So starting with The C in COSTAR the potential customers are identified.If we are to approach this in the manner of a working designer in industry then the term customer must be a broad one. Customer is interpreted as anyone who has an expectation from you as a designer. Therefore in this case there are three main customers.

The first being the show visitor, The project needs to be relevant to education, ideally have a teaching purpose within the classroom, potentially a function within the classroom, be visually and aesthetically pleasing for the visitor to wish to take the project for their school, be small enough to be easily transported back to school.

Sublitech - who will be providing the material and printing the sheets at the show, before machining takes place live infront of the visitors will need the final product to:- show off the sublimation process to its best advantage whilst keeping the company logo on display as much as possible.

Boxford :- As this project is intended to be a giveaway at the D&T show. Boxford as the designers employer expects that the finished design :- Shows the manufacturing ability of the machine, Is aesthetically pleasing and has a relevance to education, potentially has a use within the classroom so that the advertising advantage is ongoing.

Auxiliary customers include - Boxford and Sublitech Sales team.

Using these customer requirements to help modify the brief the following initial ideas are considered.

Linkage Teaching KIt.

Gear Train Teaching Kit

Maze Game

Car Game.

Bird House

Desk Tidy

Bird Feeder

Small Box

Phone Chair

Jigsaw.

I chose the desk tidy as it would theoretically be on show all the time on the teacher's desk which fulfilled the primary requirement as a marketing tool.

When it came to designing the desk tidy. It was decided to use the ACCESFM tool in the the Opportunity section of COSTAR.

Therefore the one step is controlled by the ACCESSFM steps. It is worth remembering that ACCESSFM is primarily an assessment tool for the finished article.

Research showed that most desk tidies are just a series of chambers that accommodated pens pencils etc. This I thought was due to the unpredictable nature of most desk contents and also the range and size of pens, the one thing that is usually a constant in most classrooms is a white board and therefore dry wipe pens.

Using plain MDF the first design was drawn up. The MDF had to match the size of the sheet that would be provide by Sublitech which was just under A3 (15mm boarder to be precise).

Eight holes were decided as the best number as no manufacturer of dry wipe pens advertised more than that number of colours.

The first design encompassed the functionality of holding pens and board rubber but had no real advertising space. The pen holders felt very flimsy which did not bode Ill for long term serviceability and it looked like a test tube holder. At this stage the joints needed gluing which also would not be good enough for the show.

The next iteration was modeled with the spare board in the sheet turned into an advertising block but it still looked like a test tube holder.

With a little shuffling of the board pieces it was possible to widen the advertising space but the top pen holding strip was so flimsy it cracked whilst being assembled. The tabs Ire extended and given a .5mm bulge to help with assembly and locking.

The tabs are extended and a .5mm step added to each.

Tab drawing.

Tabs are added to the horizontal pen holders to help support them and the advertising space was maximized.

At this point I had solved all the innate problems with the design the top pen strip was curved and the whole unit clipped together. But it was still a test tube rack.

So the whole design was kicked out and I started again.

After some thinking it was decided that to loose the testube shape the whole thing needed rolling up from this it was decided to make the tidy in circles.

But then there would be no advertising space so to solve that one third of the circle was left out and used as a back.

The circular model was made but it was apparent that I had now lost a place for the board rubber.

There was however a large advertising space.

Final version with the shelf added.

Next the artwork needed to be made to match the cutting pattern.

Colourful was the brief but a certain amount of the pattern was lost in manufacture.

The back was designed to match up and show both company logo's

Board Rubber Shelf.

Pencil design on shelf. Second shelf is marker pens but again has been lost.

Designed matched together.

Alternative view.

 

This project is presented as an example of how design can be enhanced using ACCESSFM and COSTAR - Like many designs i am only partially happy with it. I would have liked more time to make the artwork match better but this is the version that went to the show.