Hello everyone. Those that are out of the loop, I am in Design class now. Here are some sketches I did last night that won't ever be judged or critiqued or even turned in. I figured I'd post them so we can see how much better I get at this over the course of the year.
The assignment was to sketch 5 objects that you felt were designed well, and then narrow it down to the object that most represents "good design" as laid out by Dieter Rams as well as others. I still haven't decided which object, but here they are.
I stopped these sketches as I approached 25 minutes or so, otherwise I would have been up all night. I also tend to be perfectionist, so I could have easily spent 4 or 5 hours on the fancy corkscrew, but, no reason. Here they are from ascending from the simplest:
Binder Clip
One of my favorites. Very simple, very elegant, and unchanged for years.
Park CT-3 Chain Tool
Very simple machine. Not particularly aesthetic, and a very utilitarian ergonomics, but lovely just the same. I probably won't choose this as it's a niche product and would be limiting during research of the following project.
Bic Lighter
It's a classic. I wasn't going to choose this until one of our lecturers said we were supposed to bring our objects today. Not true apparently, but I limited my objects to portability. Hard to say if this is in the right order of complexity. This does have a lot of things going on, but perhaps slightly simpler mechanically than the corkscrew that is next. This drawing is boring because I forgot to do another view, so it's like the black and white version of above.
Fancy Corkscrew
These things used to be a SkyMall type product and cost hundreds. My guess is the creator failed for protect his patent in the country of manufacture, because as well as this is designed, you can find these now for 20 bucks. It is a very satisfying product to use, very well engineered, and surprisingly elegant. This will likely be my choice for it's complexity, as well as the sheer age of the problem being solved here. Getting into corked wine has been a long standing problem, probably before paper came in sheets. I could be wrong though. The sketch is not very good, and is head on.
iPod Shuffle
This may be the product that pleases me the most, but something in me doesn't want to choose an Apple product. I imagine there will be a dozen other Apple projects out there. I'm hungry, so I won't go into why this is such a fantastic piece of equipment, but it is. I use it 10 times as much as my iPod Classic. Here's a drawing.
There they are. Time for lunch.
