At centroid, various activities in giving exposure to design has been started.
Some of the activities done are, every week a few people take a particular design topic and explore about them and present. Along with this activity the professional work done in that week is also shared so every one understands what goes in a design based exercise.
Every member of the team work on very specific activities like concept design, engineering design, prototyping or analysis. But every individual needs to understand the full process of design and undergo the process personally to appreciate the design, and allow him to have a clear understanding.
To aid this understanding – a series of design projects are being taken.
The Methodology adopted to design is briefed as follows after identifying the product to be designed.
1. Brief Research
Understanding about the product, finding information related to similar products in market, cost, method of working, usage instructions, material and process of manufacturing. Visual feel and trends in that particular category is researched and information is documented as an acrobat format file.
The second stage in brief research is personllay using the product – during use Observe , document and analyse. Document the observations through photographs and videos and capture them as flash or powerpoint files.
2. Define problem statement
Define the problem statement in a framework. The problem statement can be in the form of improving the aesthetic appeal, improving the ergonomics, improving the function, design a futuristic product – etc. The more clearly the problem statement is defined the focussed the solutions will be.
3. Product Configuration
Product configuration is the arrangement of the different elements of the product based on a certain pattern, arrangement in space. The pattern may follow any story line based on funtion, aesthetics, human factors etc.,
Study the existing products and document the product end to end, so we know where we are starting from and this also opens up lots of areas for exploring and getting intimate with the product and involved with the design.
The documentation process consists of
a. Drawing the layout of the existing product – An orthographic view of the product is documented with the required dimensions, bill of materials, – the layout of both the external and the internal configuration is documented
b. Listing Interfaces – list all interfaces like visual , tactile etc., and give specifiations for the interface elements. like the weight of the product should be x gms, because it has to be easy to carry. The size of the letters on the product should be visible from a distance of 1 feet when being held on the hand.
- List all internal and external interfaces, the internal interfaces consists of the internal packaging items that define the skin of the product.
4. Concept Design – Idea Generation
Brainstroming and generating various themes for development of the idea is the first stage in concept design. Use softwares for mindmapping. Convert these verbal ideas to quick visual sketches, showing different concepts – atleast come up with 20 concepts to begin with, let your creativity flow at this stage. The concepts can be as a whole product or for elements of the product. But each idea should have a story why it has been designed in a certain way.
Make 3 final concepts as sketches and draw the full product in different views, and possible 3D views if possible, so as many details that could be shown to highlight the design elements in the product.
Make block models, concept foam models the validate the interface design idea as a physical form.
5. CAD models
Generate 3 dimensional data of the internal and the external components. Generate photorealistic images and add text and graphics to the product using photoshop software. Make concept presentation sheets, to showcase the design – every individual needs to present 3 concepts for an individual product they are designing.
6. Preliminary Engineering
The preliminary engineering phase and cad model goes hand in hand, during this phase have an excel sheet with Bill of materials of the components, the weight, material, cost and process of manufacturing.
7. Detailed Engineering
Based on the material of the product, the engineering is done and details of fitment, fastening are added. A typical plastic product will have details like thickness, lip detailing, ribs and bosses – no or less sidecores in design, snap fitments etc., A sheet metal design product which is manufactured in CNC pressbrakes are to be done as sheetmetal development drawings with requreid notches at the corners and the other fitment details of welding indicated.
8. Engineering Drawings
Detailed engineering drawings are drawn on the respective softwares itself where 3D modeling is done. The engineering drawings will contain part drawings, assembly drawings and exploded view drawings showing clearly the design intent, and these drawings should be suitable for manufacturing the product.
9. Design report, documentation and presentation
The final stage is documenting the full contents to form a report, the 3D models are converted as animations as rotation in 360 degrees and exploded views creation. The final report will be submitted as a 2D animation in Flash format for documentation purpose.
