I have learnt a lot about myself through the challenges that I have faced during this module (The Nature Disconnect).

When I’ve thought about nature within a project, its always been about taking inspiration, never making a product that includes things from nature. This is something that I struggled with because I couldn’t think of ideas. The three disciplines all having the same brief made it easier to see how they all cross over and their differences. Before this module I was considering if I wanted to change from Product Design to Digital Interaction Design. Once these boards were made, I could see that although both follow the same stages of work, the research for Product Design is more interesting to me. The part I found most interesting was seeing products that were made by natural wood.

Time management throughout this whole project has been a problem for me. I found that I couldn’t keep track of all the things I had to do. I spent most of my time working on this project in my flat instead of at the studio, this impacted my progress because when I came across a problem there wasn’t somebody for me to ask which left me stuck for long periods of time. From these struggles I’ve learnt that working for long blocks of time is not a good idea for me. I have come to realise that even though I worked for a long time I was getting drained and tired, so I wasn’t working as fast. In the future I’m going to change my work method. It might seem that I will be getting less work done but it will add up. I’ll stop working late into the night; getting proper sleep will allow me to get up and move into a better working environment.

This project gave me an insight into what working in the real world will be like. As a designer when you are given a job you must do it, you can’t slack and leave it all to the days before it must be done. I’m going to get more projects that I might not love but I will still have to put in 100%. From interacting with my peers, I know that even if I create a design and don’t like it, it doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it, it all depends on a person’s view on it.

When I do research, I usually only look for similar products to get an idea of what is already available. I used this style of research for the A2 boards but when I moved on, I decided to do more in-depth research. Researching designers really helped me because I got to see how they use natural resources and their design processes. This is something I will continue to do in the future as it helps me on how to approach the topic.

Charles and Ray Eames are a married couple behind the Eames Office company. I was influenced by their products made by curved plywood. Their designs look simplistic but when you really look, a lot of thought had to be put into the design. Sebastian Errazuriz is another designer I investigated. I was intrigued by his thought process and his use of natural form within his designs.

Nature was a big struggle from the very beginning. Nature isn’t something that I focus my designs on, it’s not something that would draw my attention. The use of found objects confused me even more, when out looking you can only pick up a couple of the same things. It’s hard to create a design when you don’t have enough material. I decided to just use sticks because you can find tonnes of them. Found objects also influenced what objects I would use because unlike plastic and metal that can be moulded; natural objects are hard to change the shape of without breaking. I now know that its easy to say something will be a material, but I must think further into what can be done to that material.

This project has helped me to understand that nature is underappreciated, and it is becoming harder to find. People who live in cities are missing out on the benefits that nature provides. Our world is being destroyed and it is our own fault, we are not looking after the land that gives us such beauty. Maybe not everyone wants to or can go out and spend time with nature. Having something nature themed which can be added to a home is a small step into reintroducing people to the nature that is around them.

If someone was to ask me what I have learned from this project I wouldn’t know what to say. This isn’t a type of project where I have learned specific skills that I could name. I feel like I’ve learnt hits and tip that I will use in future projects. I’m continuing to learn about myself and the best ways for me to work. Although, I am glad that I have learned the things that I have I am even more grateful that this project is finally finished.

Week four was the last week of this project and I still had so much to do. At that point I still had to finish the final model and create the instruction booklet. I got straight into making the final model at the start of the week; sticking on the branches and adding the hoops. When it came to the hanging items, they didn’t really have anything to attach the string to I had to use hot glue to make it secure.

Overall I was disappointed in the model because although it got across the idea I would have liked if it looked more professional.

If I was to continue with this design i would investigate and try to improve many attributes of the design:

• Material of the structure
• Try to get the hoops secured between the sheets of plastic
• Find a new way to attach the sticks so there wouldnt be glue marks
• Investigate making clips on the side so it can be joined to the cot

When I only had a couple of days left I was rushing to get the instruction booklet made. Although I was rushing I felt okay because I enjoy graphic design and I already had ideas ready. I chose to go with an A5 booklet because I felt that an A4 booklet would be to overpowering and un enjoyable. I also thought that any size smaller then A5 would to fiddly and frustrating to try and read.

Throughout all four of the weeks i kept having printer problems so I wasn’t able to get my pictures printed. A day before the exhibition I was finally able to get them printed. I spend all of the night before and into the morning of the exhibition cutting and sticking all the pictures into my sketchbook.

When the exhibition started I was so happy for this project to finally be over. I felt that I could breathe a sign of relief and began to feel more relaxed. The nature reconnect project was full on and stressful. I felt that I was spending tones of time doing things that never seemed to get finished, there was always something that needed to be done after and it was never ending.

Week three was very hectic as I had planned to have everything done by the end of that week so week four could just be making sure everything was ready and presentable. It wasn’t until that week that I found out that my prototype was meant to be to scale and made from the materials I felt would be suitable if the model was to be actually made. This made me very nervous as I thought I could just make it from cardboard but I then i found out about the materials and realised that I would have to think and actually go out and collect the sticks.

 Investigating the materials took a little time as i decided to go with plastic as it was easy. I felt that I didn’t have time to fully investigate materials. Wanted the structure to be strong but due to time I decided to just buy and use brand new materials. If I was to continue this whole project I would look into how to create the structure from materials with the same properties but that would be recycled.

From my little prototype I liked how it looked but felt that it didn’t capture the whole story that I created at the start of this project.

I went back to my original ideas on the A2 boards and saw the second idea and decided to try including that in my final idea.

The next stage was for me to work out the sizes. I worried about this because when I thought about the product I imagined it quite big so I wondered how I would make it and if I would be able to transport it. Researching the sizes of cots helped me to see that it wouldn’t be as big as I thought it would be.

When I was making the final model I kept hitting bumps in the road. The first bump was that the green plastic sheet I bought wasn’t long enough to cover all of the foggy acetate. This meant I had to use two pieces of the green on top of the foggy piece. This made the balance of the structure fall more to one side. To correct this I had to put more stick on one side to even out the weight. If I was to remake this with the same sized materials I would cut the green plastic so the split would be right down the middle of the model instead of being of to the side.

 When I collected the sticks I was still imagining the model to be big so I collected long sticks. When I started laying them out I realised they were to long. I had to sit and cut the sticks so they would be shorter and sand the edges because I didn’t want the ends to be sharp or the chance of someone hurting themselves on it. These tasks were very time consuming and in the end I didn’t even use all the sticks that I  had cut and sanded.

 At the end of week three I didn’t have everything completed like I had hoped. I still had to complete the final model and design the instruction booklet.

Week two was meant to be the start of prototype making but I still had to write out my designer research.  As you might be able to tell the research took a long time to write out, probably more time than I should have gave to research. I decided that I shouldn’t have to make it look perfect, a sketchbook is my thoughts put on paper and my thoughts are not perfect.

After my designer research was complete I focused my time on finding new found objects. My found objects from the A2 board where things from nature eg, shells, leaf, bark. From trying to use those objects within the models I realised that they are hard to use. Only having a couple of each thing made it hard to make a complete model. Many of the found objects were a solid shape which couldn’t be changed. This influenced my choice of found objects this time because I focused more on man made objects that could be recycled. This meant that my product wouldn’t have a negative effect on the environment in the long run.

I decided that i would stick with one of my original ideas as I felt that creating a new idea would take to long. I chose to go with the third design because I felt that it had the best story.

Next thing I worked on was the personas; who would be using the product and the story of how they would interact with it.

After I had the story of my product I was able to start the prototyping. Due to already having a design idea I was more going straight into modelling ideas instead of drawing sketches. That week was very full on but very slow at the same time. I found it really hard to come up with any ideas because I liked the original idea and didn’t want to change it very much. I used biomimicry in some of my designs as I thought bringing a subtle influence of nature would be enough.

At the end of the second week I was able to get the overall shape and design figured out. Although the aesthetic hasn’t changed much from the original idea I felt like the design was more strong looking.

At the start of week one I was glad to have finished the first half of this project; the nature boards. Nature wasn’t something I found easy to work with and I was excited to move onto a new project. When I was given the brief for this four week project I felt deflated, I couldn’t believe I was going to have to continue with nature.

Due to not liking the idea of nature it took me a while to find the motivation to get started. For the product design A2 board I didn’t really look into actual designers, I just found objects that I found interesting. I thought it would be best to include designer research in this portion of the project. I started by trying to find the designers of the objects I found interesting.

From the found objects I found:

Sebastian Errazuriz –

Duncan Meerding –

Frank Lefebvre –

I felt that these designers all created similar styled products. I decided to look into designers that were still influenced by nature but made different style products.

Colin O’Dowd –

Jean Paul Gaultier –

Isla Middleton –

Towards the end of the week I had researched all the designers but the information was all typed up on a word document so I still had to write it all out.

The thought of an exhibition made me want my sketchbook to be very organised and look nice for people to look through. Usually my sketchbooks aren’t very colourful, I normally draw and write with pencil. However this one I wanted to be full of colour to draw a person’s attention to it.