The Pocket Book of Value - Process

The illustration below outlines the many phases of my final uni project, and exemplifies how my design process progresses through all four design stages, expressing heaps of convergent and divergent thinking.

Discover

Define

Discover | Define | Develop | Deliver

Develop

Deliver

Discover - Exploring Packaging Design

After enjoying researching about how packaging design can drive changes towards a circular economy in previous written work, I decided this would be a good starting point. I had only been able to do written work on the subject and wanted to explore a subject with an important context, which I hadn't had the chance to make design work on before.

Utilising patterns made in a screen printing workshop, to explore packaging - including small bespoke boxes.
24 Hour Workshop

Taking part in a 24 hour workshop encourages rapid experimentation. This box responds to the brief ‘Choose your most precious possession and bespoke package it’. Reflecting on this output gave me a lot of questions to think about. This kick started my first ideation phase, and I began mind mapping in ,response to my own questions about packaging and Its value.
Packaging Extremes

Exploring the idea of subverting packaging for low value and high value items, such as the cucumber and egg above.
Developing how my previous ideas can become visual, exploring all different themes, and making ideas come to life quickly using photoshop.
What if packaging was removed completely?
Takeaway Tubs and Tupperware

The insight that most people's Tupperware tub cupboards are completely disorganised and unusable was a fun one to focus on for an experiment. 'The big tub collection project' is where a ridiculously oversized Tupperware tub with different sized slots in it would be placed as a collection point in a supermarket. Tubs that had been misplaced from there lid or bottom would be collected, reassigned and redistributed, so that no more plastic would have to be created. This is obviously not a tangible project due to the logistics, but the thought was fun.
Takeaway Tubs and Tupperware

RePot focused on a slightly more realistic outcome. The idea was that if the value of plastic takeaway containers could be increased (by appearing gold) then maybe they would be thrown away less. RePot is a takeaway tub return system, identified by the golden pots, whereby tubs are collected and re-used.

Define - Main theme of ‘Value’ emerges

Developing ideas and realisations even further, and taking them to the extremes, and then evaluating allowed me to analyse all my work and really pinpoint a clear focus for my project.

FaberVeg - During a discussion with my peers we discussed the Jewellery maker Faberge. I continued developing the idea of subverting low and high values, but took it to the extremes this time with this Paper Mache Faberge pepper.

Utilising the old phones I was hoarding to consider visuals for an E-Waste campaign to raise awareness of the problem.

This became a focus as the results from a survey I conducted showed that many people would keep old electronics, purely because they were unsure of how to dispose of them.

Develop - Considering possible outcomes

To progress my project further through the final two design stages of develop and deliver, I started to consider possible outcomes. It was crucial to define a clear project ambition, context and setting for where ideas and theories might live. With the help of the tutors and fellow peers we discussed options for possible outcomes, which I researched further in the next part of the project. This section once again uses divergent thinking and rapid experimentation.

Earth Price Rise (right) - Really pushing myself to visualise even the slightest ideas allowed me to produce work fairly rapidly.

Develop - Prototyping

After doing research into miniature and artist books, I decided my many ideas on the concept of ‘value’ would be best put together in a physical object, which eventually took the form of a pocket book.