This spring term I took PD 302 with Hale Selek and it was quite the experience. To preface, I was in the 8 am section and the sun had just started coming out and Eugene was starting to get warm again. You would think this would help me wake up in the early mornings and make the walk to Lawrence 197 at 7:30 am. But you would be wrong.
This class was hard. The format was hard. It was truly just a lot of putting my head down to do the work. My process book ended up being a hefty 85 pages of market research, brand analysis, 120+ sketches, 30+ CAD models, and 20+ pro-level context renders and studio photos. That's a lot.
But I did grow a lot as a designer this term because I learned the art of prioritizing. Along with PD 302 I took PD 340, HC 301, BA 101 and have been training for a triathlon this term. I still work at the Honors College and accepted an executive position as Director of Communications for the Warsaw Sports Business Club this term so balancing all of that became a problem I was running into frequently. I have the habit of going 110% into things I commit to and it's hard to go 110% in everything. This class taught me to compartmentalize and just sit down in the lab and focus on what was the next deliverable.
In terms of process of developing this product, I fell into the trap of finding an idea I really liked at the beginning of the term and sticking with it. I haven't figured out if this is a bad method or not since it did help me stay motivated. I would sit down in the Olive lab and model on CAD for hours just because I wanted the screw cap to look like the screw cap I had in my brain. Leaving the Olive lab at 3 am as the bars close in downtown Eugene was a really humbling experience.
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was having to let go of the original idea to create a clear type of casing similar to that one super retro Apple wired mouse from like 15 years ago to surround the depth and pressure gauge apparatus. Prototyping is hard and sometimes you have to accept that you don't have the technical skills or resources to create the idea you have in your head. Having to scrap the idea and restart the CAD model around Week 7 was definitely bad timing but I got through it.
As for the final prototype/model, the brief was to create a measuring device of any capacity. So I made the NIKE Dive Master for divers who want their gear to reflect their lifestyle. I was given the opportunity to dive at some amazing places this past winter but did not particularly like my gear. Analog gauges and most digital gauges are super clunky and ugly with awkward rubber boots that virtually add no user benefit. NIKE Dive Master is a depth and pressure gauge with a very simple interface that self-calibrates and attaches directly to the high pressure port of your tank regulator set up.
Besides the troubles, it was fun and I learned a lot about rendering, photoshop, and I even took an entire day to update my entire computer to mac Ventura so I could download the Photoshop beta 24.6 and try the AI generated fill function (so dope I could write a whole post on this).
It was a good term and I can't believe sophomore year is over. This fall I'm excited to take Tom Bonamici's garment studio along with a fibers class (hopefully theres a double dip opportunity there), Christopher Michlig's 400 level HC colloquia on slime, and my first official sports business course. Excited to be back in Eugene for another fall term as a junior.
As always, thanks for reading.
HAGS!
- Saachi Poddar
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