Inspirational Workspace

Some extremely fun and creative workspaces! Would do anything to work in any of these working environments!

http://www.designjuices.co.uk/2011/03/20-inspirational-office-workspace-designs/

Snook Visual

Here is a visual we made to show our journey to Snook

http://vimeo.com/37422076

Hope you enjoy!

Snook Research/Presentation

Well it feels like the finally cog has been put into place into this exciting innovative machine! The research came together and the presenation looks smart with some in depth visualisations including a very sexy animation, the result of some excellent sketching by Nate and Jamie with filming done by myself. Will post the presentation when its finished, hope you will enjoy it!

Snook Research Wall

D and A D

So, it has been a while since I posted about this project, been busy with everything going on at once but here is an update:


I focused my research on 11-17 year olds as I felt the difference in educational needs of 7 and 17 year olds was to great to create one workspace. My research consisted of lots of sketches, existing products, current learning environments, the psychology of learning, creative learning environments, anthropometric data, exisiting educational bodies and studies that have been done into creative learning as well as questionnaires and interviews with people that are still studying at school at different levels.

Through this I came up with several insights: adjustability, learning envirnments, storage, comfort, implementing technology, workspace, group/individual work.

I then focused on adjustablility as thorugh my research I realised that this was one of the things people didn't like about desks and the way they were designed. They were too rigid in structure and did not allow the user to feel comfortable enough be productive. I also wanted to include something to do with technology as my research also showed that children were using technology at a younger age.

I have come up with a final concept and I am in the stages of refining it; below are some pictures of models:

PSIV Industrial Project

We were sent to St. Andrews Golf Company and given the task of creativing a method/mechanics for interchanging golf club heads and shafts. This had to be relatively cheap and light weight and have minimum impack to the performance and feel of the clubs as one of the company's values is that what they try in store is what they actually play with.

The final idea involved having a shaft with 3 grooves in the last 2 inches fitting into a device which is attached to the heads, this is then screwed into place. An image of this is below:

Snook Interview

So we went for an interview with Snook yesterday and it was incredible, I have never felt so inspired by a group of people! Lauren Currie, Sarah Drummond and Andy Young are taking some amazing ideas that will change Scotland in the best way possible. I feel privileged to do a presentation on them.

Watch this space for the presentation!

Dyson Education Reform

A very interesting article about education reform, have a read!!!

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/21/dyson-from-standardization-to-inspiration/

Random findings

Was trawling through twitter and various other sources and found a couple of really cool things so I thought I would share!

http://design-milk.com/luccon-transparent-concrete/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+design-milk+%28Design+Milk%29

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/wrap_your_head_around_these_gears_21784.asp

Enjoy trying to figure out the gears!

Knives

May not be entirely rated to current projects but I find these knives by déglon incredible and I wish I had the money to buy them but there we go! The finished shape of the knives together and each one individualy is so smooth and appealing to the eye!

Snook

So, after a long deliberation we decided that instead of waiting for a company that didn't want to give us half an hour of their time we would move on. 

Another company that is incredibly successful in the business and design world are Snook. Snook are a Glasgow based service design company. As one description I found said "Snook work closely with clients to see the world differently by trans-formative and co-creative approaches. Utilising service design expertise and through ethnographic methodologies, they take a people-centered approach to drive forward innovation to create new service propositions and change the way organisations run."

 Don't think there is a much more interesting company to visit, especially one with the same origins of Product Design and DJCAD.

Continued Research and Possible Disasters

After a first positive email back from BrewDog things have started to cool off, possibly a bit too much for our liking!

However, the show must go on, furthering research and coming up with some questions that may be useful to ask at an interview were top priorities. BrewDog released a copy of what they planned to do for 2012 and the growth that they had seen in 2011 and this was very helpful!

Some interesting facts about growth included:

• Brew dog being available in 27 different countries
• In Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asada
• They now employ over 75 people
• Sales increased over 100% in 2011
• They plan to open 5 more bars bringing the total to 9 locations in Britain
• They also plan to finish building their new eco-brewery costing 6.5 million plans, 2 million of which came through an Equity for Punks investment scheme they ran!

Very impressive work done by these guys, however it will be interesting to find out how they balance being an independant craft brewery that retains an alternative punk image whilst becoming so big and popular "selling out" as it were to lots of different large corporations. One thing is for sure with pictures like the one below it is clear why this charismatic duo have made their mark in the business and drinking world. 

 Watch this space for more news!