Personal Reflection (Extracts from Design Folio dated 21.02.2008)
Before embarking on the EKEA project, everytime it was mentioned by Jason in class, the idea of doing it ultimately always seems very far-fetching. Initially I had three EKEA's ideas that I was interested in exploring:
- Knife holder
- Automated Yakun's Kaya Toast
- Shoe Organiser
Idea [2] was simply too huge and the electronics I forsee would be too complicated.
Idea [3] was much closer to home and its something I can relate to much easily.
EKEA's Journey begins
Proposing the shoe organizer "Shoe Tree" has been fun. Not constraining the ideas and simply considering all possibilities that it could be made and exceeding all boundaries have been exhilarating.
But bringing it down to reality by defining the brief, users and specification, then trying to get the process going has been tough. For a long time in December, I would often take the drawing board out and put it back again. Just have no idea how to start and simply do not know what to draw. That's when I decided to look at existing market products for triggers.
Research went on for weeks and still it did not get any easier to draw. The challenge lies in wanting to design something not in the market and because of lack of creative ideas, I keep drawing on the same stagnant ideas.
Talking to people and bouncing ideas and suggestion helps in some ways to open up new avenues of ideas. Talking to Jason sets me off in a deliberate direction because I have this feeling of being purposely led in a particular direction. Is it because he has a preconceived idea already? To this statement, Jason has left me a note saying "No, I don't have (most of the time) =) Will I intentionally do the same to my students next time when I teach? Maybe. Jason said "Not a bad idea, at times"
It's however interesting to observe how the ideas actually changed and evolved along the way - from tree (coat stand) to modular (square/circle) concept to looking at extendability and finally at shoe boxes held by elastic band.
EKEA's Realisation
Once the idea is fixed, realising it is pretty straightforward. Drawing the exploded views actually draws a lot of attention to details which would otherwise might be missed out. Because the process was quite rushed a lot of things I felt could have been done much better. More thoughts could have been put in. Overall the whole EKEA's journey really demand lot of discipline in getting every process to be carried out properly and concisely to avoid the need to redo due to shortchanging the necessary work. Especially when time is running out. Could have been better but nevertheless interesting.
