Design Studio Wearable Project

Wearable design poster is found here

Unit objective: produce a wearable product that the audience would consider using

Padlet:

Design Concepts:

Design 1.

The concept behind this design is simple: a shirt which contains two shirts, one on the surface and another which can be revealed when you fold the shirt inside out. Although this provides more variety in style and colour than a conventional shirt, I didn’t like the concept for its dull nature, especially since I didn’t place much thought into it. However, that isn’t to say that such a design would fail to succeed in the real world.

Design 2.

My second design concept involves a hat which has the capability to retract slits along its circumference,  revealing expanding sheets of nylon powered by servo-driven, unfurling aluminum arms, becoming an umbrella. A handle concealed within a pocket inside the cap functions as the umbrella handle, which is just a segmented plastic rod which has the ability to bend into the shape of a handle. Although the concept behind this design seems simple, producing it in the real world would be an unreasonable and absurd task. Furthermore, I didn’t spend much time thinking of this idea, so this design feels inadequate, and thus, was not selected. This design was inspired by the heat-shield mechanism which is contained within the James Webb Telescope. It’s a tennis court-sized heat shield contained inside a small box a fraction of its size.

Design 3.

This concept illustrates clothes composed of individual pieces which can be customized by their user. Each piece is a component of an item of clothing (e.g., sleeves, torso, collar, hood, etc.), and can be connected via zippers sewn into the cloth. The components each have standardized sizes, and are available in a variety of colours and fabrics. This way, if clothing sustains damage, becomes tarnished, or if seasons change, the requirement to purchase completely new clothes is eliminated. If the thought of zippers sewn into fabric seems disturbing, another alternative involves embedding nickel or cobalt mesh into the cloth, and charging it with electricity, allowing the metal to become magnetic and the separated components to attach. Using nickel or cobalt mesh has the added benefit of being more flexible than zippers, however, this option didn’t compensate for my lack of sewing skills. Thus, this design was not selected as well.

Design 4.

This design concept displays a fabric which suppresses and heals wounds the moment one appears. The cloth is composed of several layers. Between two layers of fabric lies sedative pads to numb the pain, a layer composed of individual, segmented bags of disinfectant and water solution, and a wound protection pad which functions similarly to a bandaid, which adheres to the wound after the other layers are depleted. This product was inspired by the ammunition canisters contained within the American Sherman tanks of WW2, which were protected by layers of rust inhibitor, which would cool and quench bullets on impact, and prevent the tank shells from exploding. This product was within my ability range, and I was considering using this concept as my final design. However, this piece on its own felt like far too little for this project, and I instead pursued larger ones.

Design 5.

This design concept involves cloth which has the capability to passively kill mosquitos, and a wristband which actively does. The mosquito-eliminating cloth is composed of several layers similar to the previous design. I selected this design concept as the final design because it was the clearest cut, and also because I was capable of creating it. The fact that there were two also felt like the right amount to create during this unit in the time limit we were provided. However, this last statement turned out to be false, and I didn’t produce the final product in time.

I later abandoned the sampler entirely because I couldn’t find a method of incorporating it into the wristband, which was composed of wood. The screens also were not screens, the finished product would instead have laser-etched areas where the screens would supposedly be, and neither were the tasers, which would instead be cylinders glued to the screens.

Feedback:

[8:59 a.m.] Sophie Bai [STUDENT]

great drawings and detailed description

[9:00 a.m.] Kanglee Park [STUDENT]

i really like how you added all the descriptions next to the drawings

[9:00 a.m.] Theo Koh [STUDENT]

I like how you made specific detail on your draft

[9:00 a.m.] Joy He [STUDENT]

I like the well made drawing and the descriptions in material and details

[9:01 a.m.] Rachel Fung [STUDENT]

I really like the drawing, and the labels of broken down drawing of the mosquito eliminating cloth makes it really clear. Consider the colour because it could make it stand out more

Following Rachel’s suggestion, I made a refined version of the sketch which would be presented on the design poster. This version is bolder and features colour.

During this unit, I used adobe illustrator to produce the vector drawings for this design. I was also considering using Fusion 360 to produce the wristband, however, I thought building it out of wood would be a far more interesting and engaging challenge. Although I produced a vector drawing, I didn’t get the chance to laser-cut the components, or piece the parts together. Neither did I get the chance to create a sample of the mosquito eliminating cloth. Although I didn’t complete the designs within the time limit, that’s not to say this design was not successful in responding to the design problem. I think these two concepts in conjunction with each other could establish a reasonably effective barrier against mosquitos attempting to sting the user. Modern day mosquito protection clothing, although protects the user against the threat, simply does not remove the source of the problem. This product however, plunges the knife into the heart of the issue, instead of taking a defensive position like most other mosquito protection products do. However, this product does come with the drawback of being exceptionally more expensive than its contemporaries.

Overall, I think that this project was not very successful. Although the design concepts are very thorough and well thought, the final product did not come to fruition, and thus, the primary goal of this unit was not achieved.

Next time, I’d try to focus more on creating my product, instead of focusing the majority of my attention on the concepts.