Lem Bar Stool

I have finally completed my Lem Bar Stool, designed and made by Lapalma. I'm relieved i have now got this project out of the way as it has been difficult to get into the workshop and actually make this chair. The chair is 5th scale model of the actual Lem bar stool with some slight modifications to give more character and detail. I'm disappointed with the grade i got as i just scraped into the 'A' / 1st category. Plus i prioritised this quite heavily over some of my other work and to barely get a good grade is very distressing.

Despite all of that my chair has made it into the cabinet of fame and i'm very pleased with the out come of my model. I think the finish looks really good and as i still have the jigs for the chair i want to try and make another model over the summer to try and improve the quality again.

I should also mention that the chair has other features such as it swivels on its base as well as goes up and down. 

Presentation

I had to do a presentation of how i have found the course for my first year of Product Design BA. The short answer would be stressful. But i have learnt a lot and do feel like i'm that one, large step closer to becoming a proper product designer.

The Brief 

This submission is an individual presentation, where you will need to present, to a panel of staff, your standpoint on design. The presentation should last 10 minutes plus 5 minutes for questions.

Prepare slides including sample pages from your journal to demonstrate the following:

a) what you have learnt over this year

- structure this around design history, theory and research

b) what subjects you have found useful

- both positive and negative

c) and the motivations & ethics that drive you to design

You may also refer to the article that was written about you – whether you agree or disagree with part or all of it. Also refer to your original goals and skills that you started your journal with – how have these changed? 

The presentation went well, i haven't had my grade back for it yet. But the lecturers were very enthusiastic towards it and enjoyed the presentation. So think i will be alright. However the presentation did make me realise that i do need to do more theory work as that is my weakest point. This is probably because i never did an art course so i know very little about art movements and famous designers. So my plan over summer is start an influence blog and record things i've seen that interest me as well as put topics of design i'm interested in.


You can view my presentation however there is very little writing as i winged most of it.    


Product BA Year 1

Article

We got set a brief to mimic an article layout but to write it about a designer in our class. James was my partner and he wanted Core77 as his magazine.

I found it quite difficult to do James as BSC students haven't done as much as us and generally don't know much about  typical design topics like sustainability. However James shares a lot of interesting views within graphic design and typography. This was quite interesting and it has spurred me on to look further into graphic design and in particular illustration. I'm quite fond of the illustration within the magazine monocle as it's simplistic and elegant and i'm looking into this and maybe i'll use it as an influence for one of my projects.

A lot of my friends found this project really annoying because it's unfair as you have to design an article for another student and then they do the same for you. But the annoying thing is that if you spend a lot of time doing a really good one for that person then they get a really good CV/Article to show future clients whilst if they did half heartedly then you get a bad CV/Article. So it seems a little naive to think this would work well as there are a lot of people on my course who don't turn up often and don't really care. But i can't really see how you could improve this apart from letting people choose there own partners but it then doesn't let us experience what other people do within other courses. However maybe making the Article Brief for second years would be better as that would filter some of the people away.

I feel this project went ok i'm not happy about it as we hardly got any lessons on it and what lessons we got on it were so far in advance that i had forgotten about most of the rules. Also i'm not very happy with how this section of the course is running it seems very unorganised. 

James Nightingale Core 77

Lem Bar General Arrangement

I finally finished my General Arrangement for the Lapalma Lem Bar Stool it's pretty accurate but i did have to guess some of the other measurements. 

Sketches

We were given a brief to recorder our journey from our University to Nottingham Castle. I really enjoyed this activity as we got to use what we had learnt in the drawing lessons, such as how to control the depth of field with using different media.  

Lem Bar Stool

I'm still putting the final touches to the GA for my Lem Bar Stool. It's quite difficult gaining accurate data for the stool as it has a lot of variations but i have a accumulated a lot of pictures and information from a variety of sources.  

On the right is the underside of the chair, there are lot more components than what i though as you can see there is a large metal plate. This wasn't illustrated in the 3D CAD drawing they had on their website so i've had to work this out by layering it on top of my auto cad.



Again on the right is the side profile this hight adjuster was also not on the 3D CAD but it was simpler to workout than the under plate as the angle of this photo is quite good although you do have to be careful of perspective when drawing round these photos. 

It took me a while to find these photos because as i said before there are a lot of variations. However thanks to people posting on blogs i've been able to get an accurate technical drawing which i will post after the hand in (6th may).

http://www.mypolysense.blogspot.com/
http://www.diytrade.com/china/4/products/7392460/Lem_Piston_Stool.html

Communication Report

The research report has finally been completed.
Overall I’m pleased with the way this research project has gone, I believe I have reached a good outcome although I do feel I would have like to go into more depth and to make this product a lot more useful. I would have like to of conducted more primary research with observations and questionnaires as they are the most useful to giving answers and opening new questions to think about. But I do feel this has been a good project and that the task of changing the handset of a product that hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years was difficult as there was a clear reason companies didn’t want to do it. This was because the handset is something everyone understands and breaking away from that can cause isolation within groups of people. However I still believe development is need as companies like Siemens may find themselves pulling out of the telephone market if they don’t act soon enough to revitalise it.     
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