In this task, I was given the assignment of making a sign/ and item which was interactive and changed a familiar space within DJCAD to a more memorable one. I was working with 2 other people to create the product.

Research

The first stage of this task was to research the location where we would locate our sign and/or item. At first, we looked at the lifts and the lift area at the reception of the Matthews building. We observed that people tend to stand within 3 feet of the door when waiting for the lift which ends up being in the way of the people leaving them, we also observed in the 10 minutes span that we were there that 2 people could not find the exit button to open the doors to leave the lift landing. We then sketched a few rough ideas which could help that problem. We were quite adamant to do that idea but we eventually decided to do more research as we had agreed that the decision to take that idea would be too rash.

The next area we observed was the bridge connecting both buildings together. From what I had observed, it took approximately 16 steps to cross the bridge. I thought we could use that information to create something specific to that amount. We also found out that people walking on the bridge never stop to appreciate the view or stop just to take a break on a relaxing area in the art school. I also observed that if a bunch of pamphlets is lying on the ground on the overpass, that people just go around or above the paper but no one picks the stack up.

We also observed briefly other areas such as the corridors and the stairs but the main area observed were the two stated above.

We also looked at various magazine, articles, and graphic design books at the library to get inspiration from.

Initial Ideas and sketches

Initially, before we had explored other alternatives we sketched and conceptualised  multiple different ideas for the lift, one of them was to add mirrors at the reception landing so that the button was visible, one was to make line connecting the lift to the button and the button to the door on the ground so that people would follow them and the and other ideas included messages behind the door of the lift and changing the language of text all around the building such as the lift to different language.

After we had done more extensive research of potential locations, we observed that the bridge made a lot of noise so we tried to capitalise on the bridge at first then the noise idea. We made many different ideas for the overpass which included a LImbo game, a bowling game, a skipping stone/parkour game, a hammock resting area and much more. Eventually, we came to the idea of making sounds from hitting drums which would be attached from the top of the bridge, we then realised that the overpass had nowhere to attach things very easily and thus we concluded that drums were a better idea.

Other ideas that we had thought of were to change the way people move around a corridor by adding lines and arrows of a different color to the floor to see if people would follow them or flatly ignore them.

Development of the drums

We went with the drums idea as we thought that that could help people passing by to relieve stress by hitting on them when on the bridge. We started by designing a logo/ pop art that would be placed unto the drum to attract the attention of passers-by. After finding a satisfactory pop-art, we made sayings and sentences that would be placed around the drums that encourages relaxing things such as reading a book, sleep, etc. The main focus of this was to emphasize the relaxing aspect of the banging on drums. After we had done that we began researching for a logo to place on a sign which would be behind or beside the drums the logo would be of an image which looks like a person or something relaxing.

Placing the Drums

We first placed the drums on the bridge but not many people played them so we moved it to the side entrance of the Matthews building. After close to no success we decided to place them in the center of the back of one of the corridors. That came to more success, more people played the drums but it was still quite barren. We eventually decided to create a quick new sign which changes the relaxing logo to one with a noise logo and drums to see if that would attract more people, alas it did not. The drums overall were both a success and a failure because despite not many people playing on the drums, when they were people playing on them, everyone in the corridor turned their gaze at them which did attract attention and might have rendered the space more memorable. Another thing which is also kind of a success is that despite few playing the drums, many did look at them while passing even if no one was playing them.

Results and critique of the drums

Fewer people used the drums that were expected, roughly 20 people used the drums in the hour and a half that we were stationed there. I think this could due to the fact that at the beginning we were giving mixed messages as we believed that drums could be used of relieving stress whilst many people associated them with stress. Another thing which we could have improved is that we could have placed the drums later at roughly 4 till 5 when people are exiting the building or just before lunch when people are using the corridor more often.

I think what we have done well on the drums is the location as we placed them in a better place after seeing that the bridge was not working. I think improvements that could have been made, would have been made by making the sign more clear and conscise from the beggining and observing the drums during a better time.

These are the final drums, the first one is the orignal design whilst the second image is of the revised design.