Form vs. Function; An I.D. SB (Updated 12/13)

[brandon.leedy]

A reintroduction:

I'm brandon.leedy an Industrial Design Pre-Junior at D.A.A.P.

I previously updated a rather large and old sketchbook here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=90135) under the alias "Leadster618". However it was becoming clumsy and less and less a representation of the work I'm doing now.
So, I have opened this to focus my work and have a fresher, more professional start.

I'm currently in classes until December, then I'll head back out to co-op (that's when the really fun sketches begin, ha). For now I'll be posting mostly work that accompanies my projects from Industrial Design Studio and Design Communications.

The work below is for our quarter long project in Industrial Design Studio:

Design and construct a full scale, point-of-purchase/ informative display utilizing light to attract a consumer to your product of choice.

So, I chose to make an informative product display for Moleskine notebooks. Something near and dear to many CA members I'm sure. The display would be placed somewhere in a bookstore (near the Moleskine notebooks or maybe even the cafe...)

After gaining info from users I interviewed I had a focused feeling for what I should be designing. The first set of sketches are just basic concepts. Then those concepts were narrowed down and I sketched some more. Finally, I narrowed the sketches down to create 6 developed concepts which I will present to my original interviewees for more critique and development.

Crits welcome and what do you think of the size of the images? I had trouble with this in my last SB... if they're too big, my SB becomes a scroll fest. But if they're too small you can't read text or see detail. Lemme know your thoughts...

So here's the work:

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-1.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-2.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-3.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-4.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-5.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-6.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-7.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-8.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-9.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-10.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-11.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-12.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-13.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-14.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-15.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-16.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-17.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-18.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-19.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-20.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-21.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-23.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-24.jpghttp://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w7/leadster618/CA%2010-23-08/ID1-25.jpg

[brandon.leedy]

Here's the 2nd round of sketching (as mentioned above) and the final 6 concepts which are currently being reviewed by the interviewees. As always, Crits are more than welcome!

[On Monday in DesCom we have 120 thumbnail sketches of media appliances due, so shortly thereafter I'll be uploading those as well!]

[brandon.leedy]

Well here's the 120... and yes by the end my hand was a little in pain. But let me just say, keeping a timer really helps. I gave myself 3 minutes for each thumbnail and that seemed to be the sweet spot.

As always, more to come, and crits are more than welcome!

[brandon.leedy]

So here is what comes out of those 120 appliance sketches... after narrowing the pack we could choose a few to render by hand. Below is a more detailed sketch with materials and then my first draft of the render. Being that its a first draft, I would love some crits on how to improve. Glass has always been a pain for me, and while I feel I got the edge of the glass correct (finally!) getting things to look like they are behind glass is difficult. Also any tips on those little led lights would be appreciated.

Essentially the pitch is that people still want to enjoy their CDs from time to time but want it integrated into their digital players. So, the Sonos brand CD player would use Gracenote and connections to Pandora and Last.fm to provide cover art, titles, and lyrics on the screen for the cd currently playing. The player would also do what Sonos players already do and help people transition from analog cds to digital by recommending music via Pandora or scrobbling tracks to lastfm.

Crits welcome. Fire Away.

[brandon.leedy]

Here's the final appliance render with detailing, temperature, and different album art. Also, this version features a top down view in line work. This was the copy I turned in and it was pretty well received. I'm pleased, but I think I would change the buttons to more rounded and make the 3 LED lights linear. I enjoyed making a fairly believable brushed metal and "nailing" where the glass meets the metal. Overall this was a good learning experience and feels pretty solid.

As always, critiques are welcome!

Coming Up: 70 Ideations of Microwaves. Oh yeah! Boxy, shiny, Microwaves! Lol, I'm not too psyched for boxes, but I guess I can make it fun.

[langrh]

Hi there. :) First of all, thanks for making me realize what I've kinda heard about Kawanari. One of my non-daap friends referred to him last year as "that son of the last samurai guy" who "believes in assigning impossible amounts of drawing." I was amused.

I enjoy your thumbnails, nice diversity and good clean lines etc etc. Also I really like your tip of setting a timer for 3 minutes. I'll probably try that myself, I tend to lean too much towards perfectionism.

I will say that when I look at your pages my eyes feel overwhelmed. Maybe more attention to line weight?... I can't help but say that, it's all my professors are saying at this point.

[brandon.leedy]

@langrh: Well hey, someone finally commented! And, its someone I know! Hi Rachel, I saw your work during show and I gotta say you and your class have some good sketching abilities (and 3D rendering ability, but I attribute that to Rucker ;p). No one seems to be lagging behind and it was good to see you all doing solid work on quarter one.

To all:
Took me a while to decompress from the chaos that was the end of the quarter, but we're all finally done. Here's my main board from the project.
This is my point of purchase display for Moleskines. It is meant to attract via experience. It would be placed near a shelf stocked with Moleskine notebooks in a bookstore such as Barnes and Noble. The display itself is there so that a person can experience the opened product in a controlled environment that reflects quality and solitary peace. In addition, the inside of the books would have information about the history of the Moleskine and the details about the materials in each book. I also have built a half-scale, lit model in all white soft materials. However, I'd like to get some good photos of it before posting. So for now, my material 3D render will have to do. [The original was 24" x 38" so downsizing caused some pixelation, sorry bout that.]

As always, crits are welcome and there's more work to come! (Believe me, I've got lots to show... PS. That Microwave Project I mentioned previously is one of them)

[Muz]

hmm, you have some nice work here.

Though id like to see more personal work, you have a shit load of stuff from school, but its just technical exercises and nothing really of interest :/. Yeah some of the finished stuff is worth showing, but the 150 thumbnails, aren't really necessary. This is also probably the reason you aren't getting any comments.

[brandon.leedy]

I hear ya on all accounts... if only there were time for more personal work. My I.D. classes throw a major load of work on me, so my class work becomes personal since its basically all I do. Thankfully, I'm on a co-op quarter next, so I'll design for someone else from 9-5 and then design for me the rest of the time.

I admit the process work is rather large and I'm going to compress it to a more palatable state. But, I gotta say that not posting the process would be a total denial of the project. If anything, how the design developed is just as important as the final work. Anyways, changes are coming. I appreciate the input!

[Krigbrann]

Reading the psychology and processes behind some of this stuff was more revealing than the finished product, I think. Having a timer to spend every 3 minutes on a thumbnail is pretty cool. I might try that.

I've started heading more in the direction of gallery art so I'm not really sure what to say about the moleskin shelves. I mean, they look really cool, but I haven't had enough experience with that sort of thing to know what to look for.

Was this all work you did by yourself? I mean, without a partner?

[brandon.leedy]

@Krigbrann: Hey man, long time no see! Stopped by your SB and your stuff is getting better, keep it up! No one asks we make the Mona Lisa, just that our next drawings are better than the first. Gotta get through those first 10,000 hours or so of work before we hit the professional level ya know?

Thanks for the compliments, the timer thing does work too. And yes this was all work by myself. In DAAP they make you fly solo, no group projects to speak of... We have critiques from our peers and professors but we do all our own work. The usergroup mentioned in the board above was referencing a "target market" I surveyed to gain opinions of the product I was working on.

I need to reorganize the posts above so they're less daunting and messy, I appreciate you looking through them! Its quite a challenge! I'll post some new work soon, I'm on co-op now so I've been sketching fun stuff for myself... the next posts should be more enjoyable and less structured.

[Black Spot]

I couldn't help but notice that some of the perspective is not right on your drawings,especially the earlier ones. Makes the furniture look a a bit wonky. I don't mind seeing all the thumbnails etc, makes it interesting.