Throughout this project I have strived to maintain focus on colour and eyewear. Although i must admit that early on in the project I struggled to find a direction to take my project. I spent a number of days at the beginning of the project exploring various different ideas and found it difficult to decide on one. I feel this is partly because I wasn’t dealing with a specific issue or challenge, but was aspiring to build something with specific properties by the end of the project. Looking back this resulted in a number of difficult circumstances during the projects development. Perhaps the project would have progressed with fewer difficulties had I been trying to tackle a central issue and use my skills as a designer to come up with possible solutions.
My design process has been anything but linear during this project. I found myself frequently having to stop, reassess my options, occasionally backtrack, and even go round in circles. However, the benefit of this has been that i have been able to evaluate and reflect all through my project. Though the final results of my idea generation and prototyping phases were not ground breaking, they were thoroughly scrutinised. I am also proud of my level of documentation throughout the year. It proved invaluable when it came to the creation of this website, especially my photographs which i feel help convey each step i took through the project.
A few things i would have prefered to do differently are:
This is not to say that my project would have been dramatically different had i done these things, but i do feel they are areas i could improve on. I did not intend to begin a project that would require me to learn so many new skills. More than once during my design process i worried if i had taken on too much. However looking back i feel satisfied that i met new challenges with a positive attitude and, even when things went wrong, aimed to keep my project moving forward. I certainly feel i have gained a number of new skills this year and i think this is a valuable aspect to 4th year studies.
Overall I happy with what i have achieved so far in the project and I am confident that i can deliver a final product that not only does my development work justice, but delivers an engaging user experience at the degree show. I aspire to deliver a pair of fully functioning glasses as well as additional material to create the illusion of SHADES being a viable product and company. I look forward to seeing how the whole project comes together in the remaining weeks.