Postcard Revise

Ok, so I have fixed up my postcards a bit and I am playing with doing one or two different ones for the main hero shot. The other two I am a little more troubled by. I have done a really vague business flow one diagram but I think it only sort of gets the ideas across. I guess part of the reason it is still a little vague is that I have made a shift in my approach the the problem of putting this concept into a business. Instead of making it a profitable company I have decided to create a system that allows people who fall into my customer group to better take advantage of the weakness in the system that I have isolated. That being the fact that lots of dentists have spare old tools.

So I have completed something for 2 out of 3. The third one however I am a little concerned about. I suppose on approach would suggest that there is no really business model and so no postcard is needed but I think that might be less preferable. Perhaps I should outline the business on a different level, describing the exchange that will go on in a more existential manner. One key point is that although no money will be changing hands necessarily, something will always be moving from the user to the designer or consumer to provider.

In any case. I have not printed and though I will include more than 3 postcard images here I have not finished my third one yet. I intend to finish up and have them printed by Monday.

Please comment and please click below to see the gallery of cards so far. Thanks

By Product Postcards

2 nd of may

Hi,

Hi BYPRODUCT PEOPLE,

The next session - Wednesday the 2nd of May - I cannot do - Sorry but I have two important meeting that I must attend between 9am and 12noon.

The session was going to be used as a way of reviewing your business models and design resolution - so it is an important session.

So what I would like for you to do is this:

1. Post Jpegs of your three revised postcards on to the by product blog

http://byproductelective.blogspot.com/

2. This means you will need to become a member if you are not already - I will send you an invite.

3. Take your printed postcards to class (maybe meet at the jail and then move on to a cafe or something) and spend some time reviewing / giving feedback to each others designs. Uses the questions below to frame your review.

4. Put your printed postcards in an envelope and bring them to my office at some stage on Wednesday (87.4.07) - I will be there in the afternoon so we can have a chat about your design work.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. does the business model make sense? Are the "inputs" (costs/overheads etc) covered by income from realistic sales projections? Are the volumes of production matched by appropriate methods of production? Does the business look profitable?

2. Is the production process communicated complete? Does it include all aspects of production and distribution?

3. Do the cards communicate the idea / design / brand position effectively? Has the student dealt with graphic presentation and printing professionally (ie: does it look like a real design proposition?) If not why not?

4. What works well with the design? What needs attention?

5. Is it an interesting design project? Is it well conceived? What aspects of the concept should be amplified to increase it's market impact?

6. What other ways can you suggest for the product to be produced (can the production process be incorporated into the experience of the product - like ikea?)

It is good to do this as a discussion in a group - so do it that way. The cards need to speak for themselves - the designer cannot / should not try to explain/justify their work - it needs to stand on its own.

If the work is really bad / incomplete then you need to draw the student to that and assist them in refining the design work.

Thanks

TO DO FOR NEXT WEEK

Hi All,
I apologise for the delay in getting this to you - but you have the best part of a week to do what is asked.

Ok, so Simone is off in Europe, handing out postacrds of your design propsitions (for those of you that did them). There is a considerable amount of work in doing this - Simone is essentially acting as an agent for your design work to businesses - no easy task.

Some of the work is good, some is really bad - but you all have a lot to do to bring your design work up to a standard that has any real substance as a viable design proposition.

So here is what to do (those of you at the last class know this already)
1. You All need to redo your postcards. you need to force yourselves into learning about the printing and pre press design - form the postcards that I recieved there was only one or two that did not have serious flaws in the ways that they were constructed (colour formats, bleed allowance, file sizes, font transfer, image quality etc etc) - this is something that you absolutley need to get good at.
2. You need to get your postcards printed (double sided colour) through a digital print company (snap, dinkums, kinkos etc)
3. You need to develop your design propositions.
4. you need to make sure that the design make sense in terms of its market value, cost to produce, materials supply, purpose etc (ie - you need to actually design it - most ideas are still fairly flimsy and they need to be seriously reconsidered)

For the next class You MUST have:

1. a Double sided A6 Postcard that presents your design / product
2. a Double sided A6 Postcard that discusses the products BUSINESS MODEL (ie, who is it for, how much does it cost, how many are you producing, how is the 'concept' and the 'material' tied into the brand position
3.a Double sided A6 Postcard that presents the MATERIAL - MANUFACTURING - DISTRIBUTION - MARKET PROCESS (the entire process)

the postcards must be professionally printed on 150-350 gsm card
You must include trim marks
you must include 5mm of Bleed
Your images must be 300dpi minimum
Your files must be CMYK colour format
You must take into account the difference in on screen luminosity and print
You must make sure that all information is correct

This work will form aspects of your final buisness model analysis document due soon

Haley's idea

There are a few photos of my product on my blog if you have time or have anything to say feel free to comment. It still doesn't have a name. It is a wall hanging made from corrugated iron. Thanks

new ideas

i put a few pictures up on my blog
comment if you would like....

A new home for old dental tools

This is an email I just sent out to about 30 dentists around Melbourne. I hope it is all spelt correctly. And if you know anyone in this industry who you think might be helpful for me or who I could contact, please leave a comment. Thanks

Hi,

My name is Mark Whiting; I am an RMIT student studying Industrial Design. Currently I am working on a project that intends to re-purpose retired dental picks for use by model making and sculpture students. Tools currently sold for this purpose are low quality and the higher quality alternative, new dental picks, are prohibitively expensive for students.

Does your company regularly cycle its picks and would you be interested in contributing to this project? We would be very appreciative of anything you have to offer.

Many Thanks,

Mark Whiting

Mobile: this was in the real email

Email: S3078530 the rest was in the real email

superuse.org

Superuse is an awesome site / community that you and your products can become a part of.


it features things like......
and much more

produced by Pervisioni

-

Story:
Cutting Up Knives is a production of selected knives, modified to become bottle openers through the application of an industrial process.Each bottle opener is individually chosen and cut. Beautiful name brand knives have been ruthlessly transformed, while factory rejects and second hand knives have been recycled, modified to become useful once again, functionally reassigned , yet still connected to their own unique history.

craft victoria

Craft Victoria has lots of infromation and projects that will be useful:

the south project looks at the special practices of nations /cultures in the southern hemisphere - lots of recycling ased craft practices
http://www.southproject.org/keys/trashtreasure.htm

they have a blog that has lots fo great information
http://craft-victoria.blogspot.com/

and another ongoing project called common goods
http://www.craftvic.asn.au/commongoods/

This is an exerpt from an email from John Gertsakis who I contacted about electronic waste while I was looking for secondhand keyboards. He is very helpful and is interested about the outcome of the project. I said I'd let him know how my project ended up but if others are interested I'm sure he would like to see them....

"The best person to speak with about what IT manufacturers/suppliers are
doing in Australia, is Josh Millen. Josh is the best person to give you
an industry wide view. He is the environment/sustsainability person at
the Australian Information Industry Association. The AIIA represent
companies such as HP, Dell, Lenovo etc.
Josh Millen jmillen@aiia.com.au

From a policy and projects perspective talk to Jan van DeGraff. Jan
runs the Bytback project and he knows lots about It recycling related
things. Tel: 8626 8700

I'm also developing a national take back and recycling scheme for one
of my clients (Product Stewardship Australia) and their focus is on TVs.
Our members include Sharp, Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic etc. Some
cross-over here with your interests. More importantly out web site has a
resources page that lists several of Australia's main ewaste
recyclers. See: http://www.productstewardship.asn.au/organisations.htm"

For all those asking about Wilkins and Kent here is the info

http://www.wilkinsandkent.com/

Address:
230 Brunswick St,
Fitzroy, Victoria,
Australia.

Phone/Fax: +61 3 9419 5251

Email: info@wilkinsandkent.com

They do furniture plus other design knick knacks

So thats where all the seagulls are

As I was riding high on a couple of strong morning coffees I headed out to the Melbourne Waste Transfer place out on Dynon Rd after class; this is that story.

Well it turned out that I couldn't get access to the site at all because I was,
- not in a car (I was on my pushie and therefore 'pedestrian traffic')
- I didn't have any rubbish to dump

So you can't actually get in there and you can't have a look around. The guy at the gate told me that they used to have a recycling centre but not anymore, so what can be sold is but the rest goes to landfill.

If you want to have a go I'd suggest taking a car and tell them that you have to dump some rubbish costs about a tenner I think.