posted by Adrian
Friday, June 24th, 2011
A short article on presentation – based on a few years at the coalface with varying degrees of success! Presenting is definitely an artform in itself and there are many schools of thought on how best to do it – ultimately nothing really replaces experience !
posted by factoryNoise
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
posted by factoryNoise
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
Code named ‘Cougar’ within Remington, the womens foil shaver we designed for them has become a bit of a bench mark for the DNA of the brand, with strong yet understated aesthetic creating recognisable brand language that can be reused across different products without dictating the design direction. Futhermore, the modular construction allows for different product configurations with minimal part changes and tooling investment.
posted by factoryNoise
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Faster than a speeding bullet the Not For Wimps concept airline seat we developed for Contour Premium Aircraft seating made waves as it made its way around the planet. Well, virtually that is… carried on the news wire of the global press including The Telegraph and The Australian .
posted by Lee
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
I had an interesting time on the judging panel for this years Helen Hamlyn 24 hour design challenge, which has returned to London after a few years in Hong Kong and elsewhere. The idea behind the challenge is quite simple: bring a group of designers together with a ‘design partner’, a person disabled in some way, give them a brief and put them in a room for 24 hours. At the end of this time everyone reconvenes and presents their solution to the brief. The aim is to show that by designing inclusively the result is better products for all.
When I took part with Factorydesign around five years ago, most of the solutions from the teams were physical products of some kind, ranging from a universal suitcase system to headphones full of instructions. But of course, that was just before the iPhone and apps really hit the world – this year nearly all of the solutions were app based, or had that technology at their core. Perhaps this reflects how useful a smartphone can be to a disabled person, from acting as a magnifying glass to finding the nearest pub with disabled access – the information is right there on screen and can even be read out. One of the teams in fact identified that many difficulties faced by people are actually already solved by such technology, it’s just that the technology itself is foreign or unknown to those people, and their solution was simply to create a space where people can go and find out about it all!
One thing that seems to consistently come out of the challenge is the realisation of just how difficult the world can be when seen (or not) through the eyes of a disabled person, and how easily it can be improved for all just by taking those considerations into account during the design process. At the end of the day even modern, up to date technology can be completely baffling to all but those of the highest I.Q – you only need to watch the faces of people using ticket machines at train stations to watch a complicated interface in action! The ‘Peoples Choice’ challenge winner was actually an appendage to existing technology that can recognise the user through chip-and-pin style technology on a card, and adjust the interface according to their preferences – but in a way for me this merely highlights how interfaces can often be much simplified and still work just as well, if not better.
Our winning choice as judges was actually not a solution to a problem at all. It was a game, Street Wheels, where the idea is to navigate your way through an urban environment using a selection of different wheeled transport, ranging from roller blades to a wheelchair. Along the way you have to tackle badly designed curbs, door ways and other such obstructions, and with each successful level you gain the skills necessary to approach your next set of wheels until you reach the ultimate skill; wheelchair master. Their stated aim was to be more popular than Angry Birds – thus creating an unparalleled awareness of wheels in the urban environment!
To read more about what the Helen Hamlyn center gets up to click here or read Lynda’s blog to see her view on it!
posted by Adam
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
a great time had by all in Hamburg this week – the Aircraft Interiors show had not only our first exhibition stand(!) but TWO seats we have designed. One the Acro Superlight, a delicate, refined study of integrating appearance and engineering to create a very, very light product – it won the DW award (industrial product design) a month ago, and our louder, and I mean VERY loud NFW concept seat, which was a response to the design Brief ‘create us a show stopper, please’ from Contour Aerospace Ltd
NFW is a marmite seat – but love it or hate it it has created the stir required, and for us carries the important message about change. It is time. There is a new generation of younger Business/First travellers who relish a few hours uninterrupted time to play PS, eat a snack of sushi and chill with the latest AV content. The fine dining and flat beds are not very exciting to them… not very rock’n'roll, if yer know what I mean.
A wag at the show said NFW stood for Never F**king Work – think he kinda missed the point…..
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