Grace Vase: Reflection (katie)

Grace Vase: Display Table (katie)

Grace Vase: box design (katie)

Grase Vase: swing tag and pattern (katie)

Grace Vase: casting slip (katie)

Grace Vase:inspiration (katie)

My inspiration came from the gerbera flower and I found interesting on the layout for gerbera petals, which are overlap each other but they also spread out in a circular shape.

For my vase design, I want to use the gerbera to create a gentle, and happy mood. My vase is for putting two gerbera flowers to display and is suitable for either a house or apartment with either classical or simplistic furniture.

When my vase is displayed with classical furniture it will show elegance and gentleness, it would resemble the impression of a beautiful lady. When my vase is combined with simplistic style furniture, it will highlight it’s shape and give a strong contrast to shows out the gerbera’s mood. 

SNO Packaging

The packaging for the sno vase is quite simple and understated. Consisting of a ply wood box, a white acrylic sliding top, foam inserts to protect the vase during transit and a window perfectly placed to provide a glimpse of the elegant lines of the vase. The graphics were designed to compliment the packaging's understated aesthetic and provide hints of colour.

SNO Vase

Elegantly smooth and curvaceous, the SNO vase strikes the perfect balance of organic design and clean, minimalist lines. While the graceful silhouette of the vase both compliments and beautifully contrasts that of a flower, the vase is able to stand alone as a sculptural piece. The SNO vase is handcrafted and glazed in striking ivory, adding to it’s elegant subtlety. Designed and handcrafted by Olivia Hunt.

Final Product

The final product needed to have 'money shots' to market the bowl. By using lighting and shadow, we could create some cool effects to display it.

final product

- Rochelle Green

Costs Associated

There was not many costs associated with the Aranea bowl because much of the materials were provided for by UTS. The only costs were for the packaging.

costings

- Rochelle Green

Aranea Swing Tags

The swing tags for the Aranea bowl were designed to mimic the geometry of the bowl. They needed to include safety instructions and details about the bowl that the user would need to know. The grey swing tags were the final choice as they match the graphic colours of the packaging slip.

various swing tags

- Rochelle Green

Final Packaging

Here is the final packaging for the Aranea bowl. It has a clear panel either side to see the product inside. This was important because the customers want to be assured that they are receiving the right product. The graphics also display a sense of what the bowl is about.

final packaging

- Rochelle Green

Meristem Reflection

Looking back on how the last seven weeks panned out has really shown me how much I’ve learnt in this short time. It’s been a great portrayal of the design process working in group work and has given me experience on what to consider when setting up a pop up shop. The most valuable experience that
I am taking out of this subject, is the techniques used when branding a product, and how important it is to keep the portrayal constant so you can really set your product up for a certain demographic while keeping it professional.

My four hour shift on Wednesday the 25th, from 2pm until 6pm, went really smoothly with a large percentage of people coming into the shop buying a bowl. I was initially nervous about my shift but when I realised I could easily use my customer service and sales skills which I have developed over
various jobs. As expected, I had no issues interacting with customers, answering various questions while still acting professional.
This was when I realised that the opening night would be much the same. On the opening night I was easily able to interact with the customers over various aspects of the design process and discuss the
aesthetics of all the bowls. At the end of the night it was clear to see just how successful this night was by the small amount of bowls left.

Overall I am very happy with how this subject turned out, and I’m sure that over the next couple of years I will be able to realise the extent of the experience that it has given me.

Edward Mortimer

Meristem Branding

Stamp Card

Designing the stamp card in order to represent
the particular identity that I aimed to
create with the bowl and packaging design
was very straight forward, and allowed me
to use this new medium of a “logo”” of sorts
to express my branding identity. This circular
design is clearly a fun and modern design,
with a main influence from the packaging
graphics from the 50’s and 60s. I believe
that this allows to bowl to be seen as a
cutting edge addition to any contemporary
setting.

This stamp card is used as to organise how
many bowls are sold, and assist in the organisation
of cash handling.

Swing Tag

The swing card plays along with the similar
layout of the stamp card, with a couple of
tasteful differences, allowing the user to see
a separate intent. This card is used to tell
the consumer a number of things when they
have opened up the package at home. It
thanks them for the purchase, which is very
professional, and then gives them instructions
on how to take care of the bowl. Lastly
it gives them both the name of the designer,
and how to contact me. This is particularly
useful if any issues arise, or even if they
have further design work for me.

Edward Mortimer

Meristem Box Manufacture

The net that I used to create all of my bowl

was as basic as a sketch, as all the measurements
were interrelated and depending
on each other, as it usually is with hand
made things. Having this flexibility allowed
me to efficiently create all five of my boxes
in one sitting.

Although all of the measurements were correct,

slight differences in folding and cutting
meant I had to tailer certain parts to certain
boxes, which is inevitable in hand made
things.

Here you can see me cutting out the reveal,
perhaps the most important part of these
boxes. As with sanding, cutting and folding
is one thing that just takes time and effort
and you have to put the hours in.

-Edward Mortimer

Bending the Meristem

Bending these bowls was a relatively easy
process, when compared to the sanding
process. This is because the bowls are simply
placed in an industrial oven for a couple
of minutes to heat up and then pushed
down on a wok covered in cotton material
(to prevent scratches) for two minutes to
harden in the bent shape. I was able to get
them all done in an hour.

-Edward Mortimer

Packaging Sleeve

The Aranea bowl's packaging allowed for a sleeve to be wrapped over it. This meant that the box was closed securely and also that a sense of what the bowl was about could be displayed. When packaging, there needs to be something that draws people in and displays what the actual product is about. This was designed by matching the right lengths of the box to each side and making the overlap at the top small enough to fit between the handles.











- Rochelle Green

Exhibition Space

The exhibition design will pretty much determine whether people will feel comfortable entering the space to potentially buy our bowls. We spent a number of weeks planning how we could best make use of the little space that we were given.

Initial proposed floor plan and interaction diagram

The stacked boxes along the wall give the impression that the bowls are in fact for sale and provide another medium for our individual styles to shine through to potential buyers. Also, the plinths give context as to how the bowls would sit in situate on a table or bench. 

In addition to this preliminary proposal we opted to place the bowls along the back wall, de cluttering the bowls along the side walls and providing an eye-catching feature for those who peer through the exhibition window.

- Michael Potter

Packaging Graphics

To market the Aranea bowl, I decided on using a similar graphic to the vector file of the bowl. This continued the literal experience of the spider web throughout the whole package.

vector file

- Rochelle Green

Packaging Template

For mass production, one final template was used to then be copied for the other boxes. It took multiple amounts of paper mock-ups to overcome any problems.

template that was repeated

- Rochelle Green

Box Prototypes

The first box that was designed was made to be two parts. The top half held the bowl in it and closed, and then slid into the base which then had handles. Two side panels were lated added to allow the customer to see inside.

prototypes

- Rochelle Green

Halcyon Packaging

Completed Halcyon packaging; please refer to previous posts for information regarding the coining of box graphics.

Window cut into the corrugated cardboard

Fresh to death boxes

- Michael Potter

Problems

There were problems in the bending process. When heating up the acrylic, some edges melted together. There were also burn marks on the acrylic and being clear it was very noticeable.

problems overcome

- Rochelle Green

Bending the Bowl

To bend the bowl, the acrylic was heated in an industrial oven and once removed, was bent over a wok. This process can be seen below:

melted acryclic

- Rochelle Green

Laser Cutting

Once the acrylic had been laser cut, we undertook four stages of sanding: 180, 240, 320 and 600 (wet and dry) to achieve a high quality finish.

laser cut acrylic

- Rochelle Green

Project Refinement

To create a well functioning bowl, we needed to think about how it would work when it was bent. As a result, I made all four corners of the bowl similar in shape to avoid it looking irregular.

vector file

- Rochelle Green

Showcasing the rok – final shots

One of the most important parts of product design is the ability to advertise the design with photography that do the product the most justice. In order to present that your design is of a high quality, the image must reflect this and support  the efforts of the designer

- Amelia Davies

Exhibiting our work – exhibition initiation

With all the bowls hung in place and the boxes stacked underneath, the exhibition was ready to open and the designs ready to be showcased. After seven weeks of work and a willingness to sell, every student was proud of what they had achieved and hoped their bowl would be as popular as the one next to it

- Amelia Davies

Designing the components – exhibition creation

acrylic hexagons during spraying process

With all components of the exhibition design, the actual fabrication process involved all students measuring, drawing, cutting, sanding, preparing and painting the hexagons which the bowls would be mounted onto. These shapes were created from white and clear 3mm acrylic which the students cut with ban saws and then sanded and prepped to then be primed and sprayed with the chosen orange colour

- Amelia Davies

Preparing for display - exhibition design

wall plan for bowl exhibition

One of the most important parts of this entire process would be showcasing each and every bowl to their greatest potential. The design for the exhibition had to be innovative and interesting to ensure that each bowl stood out regardless of the colour or finish. The decision was made to present each bowl on its own tessellated hexagon surrounded by a black hexagonal frame to draw a clear distinction. The placement of the bowls was based on a symmetrical arrow-like formation around the room to draw the viewers around the room focusing on each bowl

- Amelia Davies

Completing the rok – final product

all bowls boxed and ready for sale

From design inception, realisation, production and completion the final design was produced with a high quality finish and interesting pattern. Made from black, laser cut acrylic, the bowl is durable and stylish and could easily be a contemporary accent for any home


- Amelia Davies

Speed processing

Making the bowls was not as a lengthy process as compared to the first time we made them. the tasks that had to be done in order to prepare the bowls included sanding the edges using 400 grade sandpaper  and using 400 grade and then 600 wet and dry on the top and bottom surfaces. Car polish was used to polish the bowls to return them back to a professional finish. The bowls were ready to bend when in the oven for 4 minutes making it a continuous cycle of productivity of when the bowl goes into the oven to bending to another one going into the oven.

-Mariana Abdo

Halcyon Design Exploration

In the early stages of design development it made sense to go straight to natural textures found in nature. From these textures, inspiration was drawn from and articulated as small thumbnails which gave a brief insight into potential design directions.

Design Development

- Michael Potter

Templates for inspiration

I Found it challenging to get my head around how to begin making a template for a box. It was an important step for me to consider various features of box packaging such as where the tabs should go, where the fold lines should be. 

Halcyon Laser Cutting file

Illustrator is the best available program for producing intricate patterns and designs ready for laser cutting. The first stage of creating the Halcyon pattern involved producing a swatch. The transform warp tools were then used to generate the bulges and depressions in the pattern to achieve a pattern reminiscent of my concept design. 

The best way to get a sense of scale of the bowl I found personally was to print it out the file and identify where holes may be too close together or too far apart. I printed my file out several times before I was pleased with the layout of the holes.

-Michael Potter

Tree Transition

The image to the right is of the very first draft for the window in the box. As we can see it is an image of a bare tree which has been combined with an image of an autumn leaf.

In photoshop the pen tool has been used to create thick outlines in which the bare tree will be printed onto adhesive transparent labels. The left side of the graphic is the shape of the window. The result of combining this shape and the window is that you can see the bowl and the texture will add to the bowl.


-Mariana Abdo