Product design should pass through six stages before the product can become a viable commercial item. Successful product design must begin with research, exploration, from an idea. During this period, ideas and concepts are generated through the collection, analysis, and synthesis of data where product challenges are identified and resolved, far in advance of project implementation. Every client, customer, and environment need is fully analyzed. Once the product category and identity has been established, the product concept must have scope and definition. Lack of a well-defined direction will result in inefficiency, tangents, and ultimately loss of time and potential market share.
Technical factors (feasibility), and business factors (viability) will interact to define a product. Product definition will determine the direction of the concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value, and appearance of products and processes. From here, initial concepts are created and refined to pinpoint the final product design concept.
Once a final design concept has been chosen, product design and development begins. This consists of initial modeling, working within the Definition set. Bench models and first generation prototype are often produced at this stage for design validation along with any electronic control parts.
Proving the product will not only provides the product design verification, but also further solidifies the concept and confirms that the product design intent has been achieved. Success will show that the product not only perform in terms of form, fit, and function, but will also be marketable, manufacturable, and serviceable.
Proving the product design will also allow for debugging any issues and optimizing the design. There are now many new methods of making quick one off samples for proving the product design.
Manufacturing involves the product's ability to be cost-effectively reproduced such that it still falls within the original design scope. Often, manufacture requires the generation of tooling and fixtures to be used in production of plastic components or for the entire product.
During the product design stage, sales are zero and profits are negative because the anticipated future profits are being invested in product design. The longer it takes to design the product and begin production and distribution, the lower the profits will be over the lifetime of the product.
Rapid manufacturing and sales can further reduce the product design and development time by maintaining momentum into production, even for a short period of time while high volume production is being ramped up.
By building production parts while high volume production is coming on line, time to market can be further reduced.
A. Tips for Jump Starting a Career in Production Design
The work is all done by production designers who specialize in creating the illusion of reality.
Production Design in it's Varied Forms
It can be anything from a coffee shop in New York to the interior of a space craft on a science fiction movie set, so a skilled production designer must be familiar with a wide range of materials and processes to use in production design.
Learning to Work With Others
Also, most people don't realize that production design is almost without acception, a collaborative effort. That is that if you are a production designer on a movie set you will be working with other production designers on the complete project.
Formal Training is a Necessity
The best place to get a real start in production design is in a production design academy. A good production design academy will teach you all the basics that you need and then actually take you through the steps of creating a variety of different movie sets.
Building a Track Record
This is important, because regardless of your natural skill level, you are going to have to have some documented prior experience before you can approach a legitimate production design company for employment. Art classes at your local high school or community college are a great source of information and the things that you learn there you will carry with you into a formal production design academy.
B. The Greatest Product Design Of All Time
When it comes to product design, there can be little doubt that plastic is the one time biggest invention that has helped make billions of items affordable and readily available to everybody.
Plastic, coming from the Greek word Plastikos meaning to mould or shape, is the product design of Alexander Parkes and was first publicly demonstrated at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. This is an organic material made from cellulose that can be heated and moulded to any shape, retaining this new shape on cooling.
The invention of plastic has opened the doors to a myriad of new product designs
Plastic has increasingly been used in product design throughout the years with varying popularity. Warehouses were full to the rafters with plastic furniture in the sixties but some people saw the products as 'cheap' as in cheap quality as well as cheap prices. It is flexible, mouldable, resilient and very strong.
It means that anything from furniture to food and drink containers, from toys to paints, from cameras and phones to radios - all have plastic elements. The invention of plastic itself has opened doors to product design in every single area of life. Plastic does not simply rot away. It can give off toxic fumes if burnt and will overwhelm landfill sites the world over.
However, there really is no reason to be throwing plastic items away in landfill sites as it can all be recycled. The problem arises in trying to encourage people to do the right thinking when plastic products are finished with. Water bottles are one derivative of plastic product design and with today's emphasis on health and well being many people have taken to constantly carrying water bottles with them and sipping regularly.
In 2002, a staggering 15 billion plastic water bottles were produced and of this total, a mere 12 per cent were recycled. It is relatively easy to recycle plastics and they can simply be reformed into something else. One minute she was normal but after some reforming with plastic surgery she turned into Pamela Anderson. In years to come will the ground be littered with plastic body parts that used to be implants?
On a more serious note, plastic surgery is one area that has hardly been touched by actual plastic and the name is slightly misleading. Plastic surgeons concentrate on remodelling bones, cartilage, muscle and skin using various products and are sometimes mistakenly called cosmetic surgeons.
Technical factors (feasibility), and business factors (viability) will interact to define a product. Product definition will determine the direction of the concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value, and appearance of products and processes. From here, initial concepts are created and refined to pinpoint the final product design concept.
Once a final design concept has been chosen, product design and development begins. This consists of initial modeling, working within the Definition set. Bench models and first generation prototype are often produced at this stage for design validation along with any electronic control parts.
Proving the product will not only provides the product design verification, but also further solidifies the concept and confirms that the product design intent has been achieved. Success will show that the product not only perform in terms of form, fit, and function, but will also be marketable, manufacturable, and serviceable.
Proving the product design will also allow for debugging any issues and optimizing the design. There are now many new methods of making quick one off samples for proving the product design.
Manufacturing involves the product's ability to be cost-effectively reproduced such that it still falls within the original design scope. Often, manufacture requires the generation of tooling and fixtures to be used in production of plastic components or for the entire product.
During the product design stage, sales are zero and profits are negative because the anticipated future profits are being invested in product design. The longer it takes to design the product and begin production and distribution, the lower the profits will be over the lifetime of the product.
Rapid manufacturing and sales can further reduce the product design and development time by maintaining momentum into production, even for a short period of time while high volume production is being ramped up.
By building production parts while high volume production is coming on line, time to market can be further reduced.
A. Tips for Jump Starting a Career in Production Design
The work is all done by production designers who specialize in creating the illusion of reality.
Production Design in it's Varied Forms
It can be anything from a coffee shop in New York to the interior of a space craft on a science fiction movie set, so a skilled production designer must be familiar with a wide range of materials and processes to use in production design.
Learning to Work With Others
Also, most people don't realize that production design is almost without acception, a collaborative effort. That is that if you are a production designer on a movie set you will be working with other production designers on the complete project.
Formal Training is a Necessity
The best place to get a real start in production design is in a production design academy. A good production design academy will teach you all the basics that you need and then actually take you through the steps of creating a variety of different movie sets.
Building a Track Record
This is important, because regardless of your natural skill level, you are going to have to have some documented prior experience before you can approach a legitimate production design company for employment. Art classes at your local high school or community college are a great source of information and the things that you learn there you will carry with you into a formal production design academy.
B. The Greatest Product Design Of All Time
When it comes to product design, there can be little doubt that plastic is the one time biggest invention that has helped make billions of items affordable and readily available to everybody.
Plastic, coming from the Greek word Plastikos meaning to mould or shape, is the product design of Alexander Parkes and was first publicly demonstrated at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. This is an organic material made from cellulose that can be heated and moulded to any shape, retaining this new shape on cooling.
The invention of plastic has opened the doors to a myriad of new product designs
Plastic has increasingly been used in product design throughout the years with varying popularity. Warehouses were full to the rafters with plastic furniture in the sixties but some people saw the products as 'cheap' as in cheap quality as well as cheap prices. It is flexible, mouldable, resilient and very strong.
It means that anything from furniture to food and drink containers, from toys to paints, from cameras and phones to radios - all have plastic elements. The invention of plastic itself has opened doors to product design in every single area of life. Plastic does not simply rot away. It can give off toxic fumes if burnt and will overwhelm landfill sites the world over.
However, there really is no reason to be throwing plastic items away in landfill sites as it can all be recycled. The problem arises in trying to encourage people to do the right thinking when plastic products are finished with. Water bottles are one derivative of plastic product design and with today's emphasis on health and well being many people have taken to constantly carrying water bottles with them and sipping regularly.
In 2002, a staggering 15 billion plastic water bottles were produced and of this total, a mere 12 per cent were recycled. It is relatively easy to recycle plastics and they can simply be reformed into something else. One minute she was normal but after some reforming with plastic surgery she turned into Pamela Anderson. In years to come will the ground be littered with plastic body parts that used to be implants?
On a more serious note, plastic surgery is one area that has hardly been touched by actual plastic and the name is slightly misleading. Plastic surgeons concentrate on remodelling bones, cartilage, muscle and skin using various products and are sometimes mistakenly called cosmetic surgeons.
