My iMac Design

I am making a piece inspired by Jonathan Ive. I am going to take his design of the iMac 1998 and make my own.

I have sketched out some of my ideas on paper. At first i was trying to create an iMac with the handle enhanced to make it the main thing to look at but then realized a computer would look quite silly with a big handle on the top.

I came up with the idea of having a discrete handle on the top of the computer. I am putting the screen more in side of the computer and having storage space at the bottom of the screen. It makes the screen more private, if there was someone sitting next to you they couldn't see your screen. The back of the computer is rounded no edges. 

iMac 1998

Jonathan Ive designed the iMac in 1998, his objective was to design a computer for the consumer market that would be simple, easy to use, highly integrated, quiet and small. He wanted it to be an unashamedly plastic product. Typically, given our obsession with materials and production process, he explored different polymers, moulding technologies, colour, texture an levels of opacity.

 

Using translucent materials posed new challenges. Ive not only needed to develop new method of assembly. He found himself caring about the appearance of internal components that had previously had little impact on the product's appearance.

When researching new processes he often found himself working with different industries. He worked with a confectionery manufacturer. with their experience in the science of translucent colour control helped Ive understand the processes to ensure consistency in high volume.

Ive's attempts to make the iMac less exclusive and more accessible occurred at a number of different levels. An example of its detailing is the handle. Its primary function is t obviously to make the product easy to move, but a compelling part of that is the mmediate connection the handle makes with the user by unambiguously referencing the hand. this reference represents, at some level, an understanding beyond the product's core function. Seeing an object with a handle, you instantly understand aspects of its physical nature.

Ive wanted to cool the product by convection to make it quiet. This drove much of internal architecture, the design of the venting schemes and even the form of the handle recess

Johnathan Ive

Jonathan Ive is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple Inc. He was born on the 27th of February 1967 in Chingford, London. He has been the lead designer for Apple since 1997 and directly responsible for most of the company's recent hits: the iPhone, iPod, iPad and MacBook Pro. He has been honoured with many awards for his work and has been named 'The Most Influential Person in British Culture' by the BBC in 2005.



During Ive's high school years he was passionate about cars and it was this interest that led to his later carers as a designer. He eventually elected to study industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic.

Ive's first design assignment at Apple was the iMac. He runs his own laboratory at Apple, in which he oversees the work of his appointed design team, and he is the only Apple designer with a private office. Only his core team—which consists of a team of around 15 people from Britain, America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand who have worked together for around two decades—and top Apple executives are allowed into the laboratory, as it contains all of the concepts, including prototypes, that the design team is working on.


In an interview, Ive stated that he hopes that his best work is yet to emerge and that he prefers to be identified as a maker of products, rather than a designer. He believes that there is "a resurgence of the idea of craft" in 2014.

My Lemon Juicer Design

I am making a piece inspired by Phillipe Starck. I am going to take his design of the lemon juicer and make my own.

I have used the same idea as Phillipe Starck by drawing my ideas on a napkin. I am then going to refine one of my designs further. I have chosen the lemon juicer as it is a very usual design of a kitchen project but also quite interesting.

Lemon Juicer

The Juicy Salif Lemon Squeezer was designed by Philippe Starck in 1990. It is an icon of  industrial design and displayed all over the world. At first it was inspired by squeezing a lemon over a squid in a sea food restaurant, then he doodled some idea on to a napkin. Many people think that it looks like a spider. I personally think it looks more like an alien spaceship out of Men in Black 2.

This is a beautiful kitchen appliance to look at but may not work as you thought it would. 

Product Design

Product design is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad concept, it is essentially the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.
In a systematic approach, product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas, turning them into tangible inventions and products. 
The product designer's role is to combine art, science, and technology to create new products that other people can use. Their evolving role has been facilitated by digital tools that now allow designers to communicate, visualize, analyze and actually produce tangible ideas in a way that would have taken greater manpower in the past.

Design expression comes from the combined effect of all elements in a product. Colour tone, shape and size should direct a person's thoughts towards buying the product.Therefore it is in the product designer's best interest to consider the audiences who are most likely to be the product's end consumers. Keeping in mind how consumers will perceive the product during the design process will direct towards the product’s success in the market. However, even within a specific audience, it is challenging to cater to each possible personality within that group.The solution to that is to create a product that, in its designed appearance and function, expresses a personality or tells a story. Products that carry such attributes are more likely to give off a stronger expression that will attract more consumers. On that note it is important to keep in mind that design expression does not only concern the appearance of a product, but also its function. For example, as humans our appearance as well as our actions are subject to people's judgment when they are making a first impression of us. People usually do not appreciate a rude person even if they are good looking. Similarly, a product can have an attractive appearance but if its function does not follow through it will most likely drop in regards to consumer interest. In this sense, designers are like communicators, they use the language of different elements in the product to express something.

Product designers need to consider all of the details: the ways people use and abuse objects, faulty products, errors made in the design process, and the desirable ways in which people wish they could use objects. Many new designs will fail and many won't even make it to market. Some designs eventually become obsolete. The design process itself can be quite frustrating usually taking 5 or 6 tries to get the product design right. A product that fails in the marketplace the first time may be re-introduced to the market 2 more times. If it continues to fail, the product is then considered to be dead because the market believes it to be a failure. Most new products fail, even if it's a great idea. All types of product design are clearly linked to the economic health of manufacturing sectors. Innovation provides much of the competitive impetus for the development of new products, with new technology often requiring a new design interpretation.

Philippe Strack

Philippe Starck is a French product designer and interior designer, born 18 January 1949 in Paris. He is equally well known as an interior designer, a designer of consumer goods, and for his industrial design and his architectural creations. Philippe Starck started his career in the 1980s.

Starck studied at the Ecole Camondo in Paris. An inflatable structure he imagined in 1969 was a first incursion into questions of materiality, and an early indicator of Starck's interest in where and how people live. Starck's iconoclastic designs brought him to the attention of Pierre Cardin who offered him a job as artistic director of his publishing house.
At the same time, Starck set up his first industrial design company, Starck Product - which he later renamed Ubik and began working with manufacturers in Italy and internationally. His concept of democratic design led him to focus on mass-produced consumer goods rather than one-off pieces, seeking ways to reduce cost and improve quality in mass-market goods.
Starck's prolific output expanded to include furniture, decoration, architecture, street furniture, industry (wind turbines, photo booths), bathroom fittings, kitchens, floor and wall coverings, lighting, domestic appliances, office equipment such as staplers, utensils (including a juice squeezer and a toothbrush), tableware, clothing, accessories (shoes, eyewear, luggage, watches) toys, glassware (perfume bottles, mirrors), graphic design and publishing, even food (Panzani pasta, Lenotre Yule log), and vehicles for land, sea, air and space (bikes, motorbikes, yachts, planes). 
For the past thirty years Philippe Starck has been designing hotels all over the world, including the Royalton in New York in 1988, the Delano in Miami in 1995, the Mondrian in Los Angeles, the St Martin's Lane in London in 1999, and the Sanderson, also in London, in 2000. In South America, Philippe Starck designed the inside and outside of the Hotel Fasano in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 using materials such as wood, glass and marble. He then turned his attention to luxury hotels: in 2008, Le Meurice and the Royal Monceau in 2010.



Through his "democratic design" concept, Starck campaigns for well-designed, quality objects that are not just reserved for an elite. He would put this utopian idea into practice by increasing production quantities to cut costs and by using mail-order.