Packaging Details

Still pursuing the packaging side of the project, things are coming along nicely. I still believe that the packaging is as much of a deal as the item itself and that a well designed product should be in a well designed piece of packaging. This holds true to many companies and I like to take care of all the details from start to finish.

The boxes have been finished. Once the right size was created it was just a case of making a good version of it. They are slightly bigger than I hoped because I don’t know how big the plug is that I ordered for it yet because it hasn’t arrived yet. But as soon as it arrives, a smaller internal piece will be made to house it and the USB cable. The booklet has also been finished. A smaller version was created as a 70mm square rather than an 80mm square. This means that it fits on the internal surfaces of the product nicely (a photo later on when the internal box structure is made will explain all of this). The packaging has also been kept to a minimum. Single core cardboard (~2mm thick) makes up the box. Some quick calculations tell me that if put on pallets to half height, it would hold about 400 boxes, so shipping would be made cheaper and more efficient than if it had larger, more extensively padded boxes.

What was going to go on the outside of the box? This was a problem that I thought would cause more trouble than it was worth but as it turns out, it wasn’t. I bounced ideas off a friend about what I should do and we both ended up agreeing on the same thing. Because the boxes were too big to fit on the laser cutter (annoyingly they were 20mm too big when I was wanting to cut the net shape out), a paper sleeve or slip would be used with just the name of the product on it. Nothing else. The colour of the paper used would determine the colour of the product inside. The cardboard box in that case would be left blank. It mimics the product itself. It has no product information on it, usage instructions or graphics apart from the name of it on the light prism.

This type of packaging should also appeal to the target age group. Younger people today tend to be more interested in higher quality or looking products. Hence why you see most of them with a smartphone and wearing stupidly expensive clothes. If I can try and convey a value of expense and quality with the packaging, it should make them more interested in the product and hence more people would buy it. I suppose it is a case of judging a book by its cover with this one, as I mentioned earlier, a good quality product deserves a good quality box to put it in.

It Works

A momentous occasion. I managed to squeeze all of the electronics into the black version (I have already made a post about this thinking about it). On top of that, when I quickly attached the bottom to the main body using masking tape, and gave it a quick test, it worked… perfectly.

I secretly had my doubts about how the light would travel through the prism, but I the ‘etching’ on each side makes the light quite obvious and gives the product a strangely attractive beauty. It looks good.

The only thing that still needs to be done is take one final look at the code to see if there is any changes needed and then to join it all up and get the final photographs and video made.

Happy days.

Yet More IO Graphs

It has been a while since I have done any of these but I fired open IOGraphica and made some more graphs. This particular one was over 10 hours worth.

Another Website Plug

Another plug for my website, but if you view it on a mobile device, the good news is that it shows up perfectly. It looks good in portrait or landscape, and if you save a bookmark of it to the home screen, it takes care of that too!

This website is looking and performing much much better than my old one. And it is much easier to update too.

Fourth Year: Solution to Painting Problem

A real progress update this time. It has been a week since my last post concerning the paint on the project. A week has passed and things are starting to look up I suppose. The spray paint that effectively ruined the pieces had to be binned because it looked terrible when applied. Thankfully a solution was come to. Emulsion paint. Unfortunately, this has meant that a lot more effort has had to be put in and a week was wasted pursuing the spray paint.

Two different emulsion paints were bought, matte black and a white. When applied, dried and sanded down to a smooth finish they looked quite good. A polish was applied and the appearance looked even better, though it did show up imperfections caused from the sandpaper such as deep scratches.

Over the past week I have been working almost non stop trying to get the coats of paint thick enough so that when they are sanded down, the wood/primer doesn’t start to show. Because of this, the white one has had well over 10 coats of paint applied. The black one has been problematic too. Because of the extreme difficulty in removing the original spray paint from the part, the matte paint was applied on top. Whilst this may not seem too bad, when it comes to sanding it down, things start to go wrong. It is fine on the sides but on the top and detail of the phone slot, it makes everything a little too rounded and the surface is a pain to get smooth.

In hindsight I probably should have got someone to paint it for me, but if they messed it up and I had to start again then I would have been in big trouble.

After well over 6 hours of sanding today, they are very nearly finished. The black one just needs the top detail finished off and the white one needs touched up in places and it also needs the top part finished. The two bases are almost there too. Fingers crossed that tomorrow will be the last day of sanding.

The paint does have me worried in a number of ways though. The only one that I am going to put on here is the fact that it has added too much thickness to the MDF parts so instead of a smooth seamless join between them and the acrylic block, there is a notieable step. I do not know how much of a problem it will be to rectify but it is annoying me very much. With only three weeks left until the final hand in, I was hoping to have finished this almost a month ago. There is only setback after setback at the moment.

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Updated Degree Show Image & Draft 100 Words

After the last post about the image I uploaded here showing what one I was submitting for the degree show one, I found out after rereading the submission form that it had to be portrait and not landscape. This meant that I had to sift through my photos in Aperture again and pick one, make the changes and make sure it looked right.

Luckily it didn’t take too long as I could just copy layers in photoshop from one image to another. Here is the updated image that was submitted on Friday:

A description of the project also had to be submitted. Because this fits in nicely with the 100 words hand in at the end of the project, it was easy enough to make them the same. Here is the submitted 100 words, but they my be liable to change within the next three weeks.

Technology has become so embedded into everyday life that it is difficult to detach from it, especially for younger generations who often lose valuable sleeping time because of ‘being online’. 夜間 night* aims to discourage phone use in bed and aid the process of drifting off to sleep.

夜間 night* starts a soothing mood light when the phone is inserted, encouraging sleep whilst charging the phone. 夜間 night* will react to the phone when a notification or message is received by flashing brightly and vibrating, disturbing the user, questioning whether the phone needs to be on or not.

Graduate Skills Award

A few weeks ago I posted that I had been awarded the Dundee Graduate Skills Award (DGSA). During the middle of the week when I returned back to Dundee from a brief spell at home, I nipped down to the careers service and picked up my certificate. Luckily it was between showers of rain so I didn’t get soaked.

This was the third year of the DGSA and they are planning on making it bigger every year. I was only one of a handful of people from the art school to apply for it. As for how many were awarded it, when I went in to pick mine up, the folder with them all in it seemed to be quite full.

New Website Live

As I mentioned a few posts ago I had a new website but was waiting to upload it. Well the time has come and it is live!

I am having a few problems with transferring my domain to a new registrar so you can only access it via http://mrdouglaswood.com for the time being. Do not put www. at the start because it will not work just yet.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

New Website Coming Soon

Over the past few weeks I have been investing a huge amount of my spare time into redoing my website. The time is almost here for you to get a closer look at it and go hands on, but in the mean time here is a little preview.

It is much much cleaner than the previous one and it does more what I want it to do than what my current one does. I also have much more control over all the details in it. On the whole I am extremely happy with it, and if I’m lucky, it will be online within a week!

Snapseed

Fourth months after Apple’s 2012 12 days of Christmas, I am starting to see the joys of one of their offerings. On the 7th day, iOS photo editing application, Snapseed, was free to download. At the time of download, it seemed like a fairly decent app, however, I didn’t really see the point in it as I did all my photo editing on my iMac or MacBook. The bigger screen, I find, is much more advantageous in those sort of situations compared to the smaller screen of an iOS device.

Lately, however, I have been finding that I am using Snapseed more and more often. And at times, in conjunction with other photo applications such as Instagram. Snapseed does offer a good selection of editing capabilities which can actually transform even the most average photograph into something that is worth sharing. I find that it is good for applying affects that I would normally shun on my computer in a non destructive environment. Yes they probably aren’t to everyones taste but it opens your eyes to different takes on photos.

I am aware that it does add to the argument that people have that computers narrow the gaps between professionals and amateurs, but that shouldn’t really make skills take a back seat. Anyways, here is an example from earlier of a photo edited in Snapseed.