Proj3 Commenters

The semester is quickly drawing to a close, just one more week and it's over! Just to remind everybody that you have to post your Project Three for peer commenting after the presentations next week. Each student is required to have provided feedback to a total of 10 students throughout the course. If you have done 8 already during Proj1 and Proj2, then you need to do only 2 more, and you are free to choose which ones to feedback on.

Good luck with next week! Three designers have been invited to sit in with Anika, Ross and me for your final presentations. Dont forget to wear smart casual and to exude confidence in what you've achieved. We're all ready to get impressed!

Proj2 Commenters

Don't forget to post on your blogsite your Project 2 Postal Presents graphic posters and rationale. Note that this time you are supposed to comment on 3 student works (reduced from 5), and that they are not the same students you commented on in Project One. Check out this table to find out whose project you're supposed to comment on.

BTW ten students still havent made their blogsites accessible to all and commentable by anybody. If you've got these lucky numbers for your Student Number: 3187745, 3211563, 3224395, 3249741, 3253014, 3253909, 3254443, 3254644, 3255449, 3255629 -- please revise and update your settings to READ by anybody and COMMENT by anyone.

Project Three: Treasuring Time

You can download here the Project Brief. PDF or JPG and the Lecture PPT.

Postal Presents: cutting diagram

This is what a cutting diagram looks like. It shows the parts which are to be cut (solid lines) or scored for folding (broken lines). You dont need dimensions but they have to be in full size.

Postal Presents: instructions to receiver

Remember that the receiver of your Postal Present should be able to decipher how to transform the 2D sheets which came in the envelope into the 3D object that you would like to give him/her. Thus you should include a sheet inside the envelope which shows how to do it. A series of step-by-step images would be useful. For next week's assessment, if a random receiver of your package (such as your tutor or classmate) cannot understand what to make of the envelop contents, then your design will be considered less successful. Instead of bringing a smile to the receiver's face, you'd be delivering a frown! Of course good design is intuitive and needs little instructions to use, particularly if it is visible or obvious from the design how it is supposed to be operated. There is a good book in the library with lots of graphical examples on the art of instructional design: "Open It".

Peer Comments on Project

It's great to see students giving constructive comments to each other and supporting each other's work.

Unfortunately there are still some students whose blogspots are up to now inaccessible or unavailable for comment. If you are one of those, you need to change your settings ASAP and upload your work as soon as the project has been presented; if this situation continues you will be penalized for making it difficult for your peers to do their task of commenting. Also some obviously didnt put much to comment on (unclear images, no textual explanation, no poster, etc), making it difficult for the peers to give any feedback.

When commenting -- aside from praising -- please dont forget to give feedback on how the design could be improved. There's no such thing as a perfect design, everything can benefit from improvement.

Presentation Room Layout

The layout for the studio for Friday's Project One Experience Enrichment presentations as shown at the left.

Note that many of you wouldnt be able to mount your posters or drawings to a wall or to a glass panel. It's OK to have your works flat on the tables, but I suggest you put each of them inside an A3 plastic sleeve and insert some rigid cardboard to support, so that when you are presenting they are not floppy. That would make it look more professional too. DO NOT mount on foam core!

Another option is to get an A3 display book, or better, an A3 easel display book which can stand up by itself.

Project Two: Postal Presents

The handout for the Postal Presents lecture this morning can be downloaded here.

The brief for Project Two is here.

Modelmaking materials

In Marrickville there is a shop which sells industry offcuts, rejects and scraps at bargain prices. There are plenty of materials are useful for modelmaking: EVA foam sheets, PVC, polystyrene, wood, aluminium, etc. Check them out: www.reversegarbage.org.au

Some tips on Hand Tool Design

Here are some useful illustrations showing some principles and guidelines on hand tool design. These were extracted from standard industrial design references on human factors:

Etienne Grandjean. Fitting the task to the man: a textbook on occupational ergonomics.

Barry H Kantowitz + Robert Sorkin. Human factors: understanding people-system relationships.

Stephen Pheasant. Bodyspace: anthropometry, ergonomics, and the design of work.

Mark Sanders + Ernest McCormick. Human factors in engineering and design.