Website is now live!

Well this will probably be the last time i post on this blog. but i am pleased to say my website is new live with the new blog on it. So if you have been reading this blog then please go to
samgrangerdesign.co.uk

Remember to subscribe to the page and go to the contact tab to follow the website on twitter and facebook for all the latest posts.

Many thanks
Sam

Tomorrow or day after tomorrow....new website goes live!

ok guys ben doing alot of editing last week. The new website is nearly ready to come onto the big wide web!!! scary! I still need to do my portfolio and photography sections but they will follow shortly after.

For now and updates on how the website is coming along please like the new facebook page dedicated to the site. it is:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sam-Granger-Design/127019414045192

Thankyou :)

NEW WEBSITE IN DEVELOPMENT

ok guys, yes i know i haven't posted in like...ever, but i have been very busy a university. Now just entered my summer holidays and today I started designing a new website for myself to keep me occupied.
Will be 1 week, perhaps 2 until its running as I have never constructed a website before but i am usually a fast learner.
The reason i will be effectively abandoning this blog is that my new website will have a blog. The website will also showcase my own design work which is handy. there will also be a photography section too.
I will send previews of the website on twitter @sammgranger so follow if your interested and if you like reading random and funny daily posts.

Many thanks,
Sam =)

UNIVERSITY

Abit about my life at the moment:
Well haven't done a post in a while because basically been busy partying it up and having hangovers during freshers. Got another week and a half yet, already getting knackered, but great fun. Moved in with some lovely flat mates, we all get on really well. Jordan, the other boy in my flat, we get along well good as if we have known each other for years not 4 days!!! We have a lot in common, have a great laugh, its wicked. Check out his Blog: http://jaylward.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/uniiii/. My flat is also very nice, really happy with it. I am getting excited about starting my course in just over a week, want to have more stuff to do in the daytime and get my head back into design because its been such a long break from doing any design work. Had my first experience of working washing machines and dryers yesterday, what can I say, lots of fun. Apart from the fact I had to ring my mum up to work out how to wash and sort my clothes out into which wash they should go into I think it was a success. Apart from the fact I nearly lost my flat keys. At first I thought I had put them in the washing machine because that is something I would do because I am an idiot sometimes, but luckily someone had accidentally picked them up and was waiting for me at the top of the lift with my keys...BIG relief. Cooking wise is going quite well. Made a sausage hotpot the other day, went down well, no one experienced food poisoning from it, happy days. Resorted to a pot noodle at dinner today which was slightly disappointing, but too much of a headache to cook anything. I felt pretty ill tuesday night, must have ate something dodgy so that was a bit of a downer of the week. My dance moves have improved greatly over the last week, there still funny and contagious and shockingly bad but thats their aim...to get attention :).
So yeah thats is pretty much it, (of what I remember). Love how muddled up this paragraph is with no logical order, but kinda sums up how mental this week has been.

Design:
Ok so i know I haven't posted a good design review for a while now, but I promise something will be on here on Monday, will probably write it later as having a quieter night tonight. I will try and make it special but my brain is probably shit at the moment due to alcohol. I also need to mention some more blogs, I will do this sometime soon but priority at the moment is a design review I think. A lovely thing about living at Bournemouth is the beach, really inspiring and I am hoping it will help me think of some really good design idea's and projects in the year. My design projects will certainly be on this blog, which will add more content and show you the type of things I like to design. SO yeah thats about it for this post...now going out to play pool, probably pub later....sorted.

Blog Mentions...

Ok I have recently made a thread on www.bloggeries.com where basically they put down their blog and I will share their blogs on my blog. If they are nice they will do the same for me, and anyone else in the thread. The aim of it is to get more traffic to peoples blogs.
Here is the link to the thread: THE THREAD

So here we go, these are the people who have suggested their threads for me to give a mention. All of these blogs are great and I throughly enjoyed reading some of the posts, I have also followed some of them :).

http://joelchrisman.blogspot.com/ = The blog of Joel Chrisman's life. A very entertaining read, with useful information about life as well as the fun bits.


http://lillenalite.blogspot.com/ = This blog is about health, beauty, makeup, fashion and fitness. Also has soem very yummy cooking recipies!!! very useful for when i go to university next week.


http://www.theseagreenjournal.com = Some lovely interior design with some fantastic photos. Really good blog.

http://aubrey-continuity.blogspot.com/ = A blog about Aubrey's life....re-inventing herself, re-educating herself and re-joining society. A fascinating read.


ramblinggentleman.blogspot.com = Maddening thoughts of a rambling Gentleman.


http://ticklecityaward.com/ = A wonderful blog about pop culture. Funny. You sir, have been followed on twitter because I liked this one so much :)


There you go, thank you for your submissions, gave me something to read last week. This is a continuing thread so please be sure to visit it. If you want me to mention your blog next week then drop by the thread, have a look at my blog and share it around too if you like what you see, and leave a link to your blog in the comments section. 
Many thanks :)

Distinctive Monday: Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif' Lemon Squeezer

Ok, yes I know a couple of days late, but I have been busy with work and university sorting out, only a week and half until I go, its came so quick. Right this week is a completely different product to last weeks as I want this blog to contain a wide range of iconic products, not just gadgets.

This week I have chosen Philippe Starck’s Lemon Squeezer designed and manufactured in 1989. This design was somewhat controversial when it was first released, as many designers questioned its impractical design. However, this product is now recognised world wide for its innovative design that introduces the concept of sculpture into its function. Although the product is classed as a work of art, we cannot forget that people buy this as a product.

Soooo Philippe Starck:

You should really know who he is but I will give you a recap. Renowned for his innovative yet critical approach to design, he has become one of the most globally recognised designers of the ‘new’ design style. His French based company focuses on creating useful products with distinctive aesthetics to capture a target audience globally. One of Starck’s strengths is that he has not restricted his design to one specific area. He designs for a large range of markets from industrial design to small products such as a toothbrush. Starck focuses on mass-marketing ‘useful’ products and adds his own style to make the product look organic, streamlined and unique. This makes his products stand out in the market as they make other products competing look, well boring to be blunt. He is a pretty impressive man and he is well worth reading up as many of his theories will change the way you think about your own designs and other peoples. He was in the BBC 2 program ‘Design for Life’ last winter, a fantastic series that showed you a detailed account of how he looks at design, openly criticising the contestant’s ideas but improving them greatly throughout the series. Well worth a watch. Here is a link to the trailer on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDx87MQH6eY

Philippe Starck.

The Aesthetics:

The product itself is a well-known design of Starck and has become an iconic product. The lemon squeezer has an obvious function and purpose but this is not the success of the design. The key success of this design is the aesthetics. Shaped so elegantly and streamlined with a futuristic style, this product certainly stands out to other lemon squeezers on the market. The product is also simple, as it is only made out of one material (cast aluminium) and dye-casted within one mould. This reduces its carbon footprint and makes it much cheaper to manufacture via mass production. The aluminium has a mirror polished finish that makes the material much more appealing to the consumer. It gives the product an expensive look and makes it much more eye catching. The finish also makes the product easy to clean and wipe after use making it very hygienic. The design is also very eloquent, mimicking a futuristic rocket in my eyes. This product definitely brings something new into the kitchen that is an eye catcher to any guest you may have.

Juicy Salif' Lemon Squeezer, note its unique form and shape.

The function:

The function of the product as a lemon squeezer does in fact work quite well. It uses gravity as its key action to bring the lemon juice down towards a dish underneath. The shape also allows juice to stay on the surface of the product as it drops down, minimising mess. Due to the product been manufactured from one mould, the product is very strong and distributes pressure and force from squeezing the lemon evenly across the three legs. That is basically it in terms of function. A great product that doesn’t use technology, but just makes lemon squeezing simpler due to its unique shape. However, saying this, the function of the product has created debate amongst users as people say that it creates mess when in use. Starck in reply to these remarks defended his design with this famous quote:

"It's not meant to squeeze lemons, it is meant to start conversations."

Philippe Starck

Finally:

This product is a prime example of how a simple innovative twist on a product can have great effect. The product uses simple design with an innovative taste, making it unique on the market increasing its sales. It was so effective the art community has named it as a model as well as a product. This product now stands proud in the museum of modern art in New York, and for good reason too. People celebrate it as a piece of form over function. Starck introduced another dimension into product design and made it less risky for other designers to add an element of ‘different’ into their own work. For this, I respect him greatly and his work.

The lemon squeezer in use.

So there you have it, something completely different to last week. Next week I will try and be on time :P haha. What do you think to Philippe Starck and his lemon squeezer? Discuss below...

For those of you who are waiting for me to give your blogs a mention, that will happen tomorrow. If you want me to give your blog a mention then please visit http://www.bloggeries.com/forum/show-off-your-blog/20734-mentioning-sharing-your-blogs.html.

Speak soon x

Distinctive Monday...

So here it goes, the first instalment to this design blog.

This Monday I am going to review a mobile phone that I believe took touch screen devices to a new level. And NO it isn’t the iphone, sure the iphone made touch screen devices iconic and current, but the device I have chosen is the HTC Hero/T-mobile G2 Touch which was released last September in the UK by HTC.

The Hero was a revolutionary Google Android phone that experienced record sales in Android devices. The success of this was mainly due to the new HTC sense integrated into the phone, which took the Android experience to a new level. However, from a design perspective I also believe the phone was so popular due to its distinctive shape and universal features that fitted so well with the new Sense software.

Get to know the Hero.

HTC Sense with Android:

So lets get the software out of the way. HTC sense had its debut on the HTC hero and was described as an innovative alternative to the normal Android platform. It brought an aesthetically pleasing interface that was of universal design with ergonomics as a key motif. This makes the system easy to use, quick and allowed room for dramatic improvements that enhanced the Android interface. Features such as sync contacts with Facebook and the new home screen layout made it easy for users to quickly look at messages, phone calls…you name it through each individual contact. HTC sense also brought in the aspect of complete customization to the operating system and allowed up to 7 home screens. This improvement to the basic android system gave users much more freedom to make the phone feel like their own, using enhanced widgets from HTC and the android market to quickly view pretty much anything the user wanted. These improvements are a good example of how simple improvements to original ideas can make a product sales dramatically increase. The sharp increase in HTC android powered phones after HTC sense came out has made HTC use sense as their unique selling point in all of their android products. Talk about success…

A wonderful picture showing the 7 homescreens of HTC sense. These are all completely customizable giving users choice and enhancing the user experience of the product.

The Shape, size and Form of the Product:

A very distinctive feature of the Hero is its ‘chin’. This design feature makes this phone very recognisable across the world aesthetically. Alongside this, it also brings several benefits to the phone and user experience. The chin orientates itself towards your mouth when you are having a lovely conversation with whoever (or not so lovely conversation with insurance companies, Student finance and other related crap). This orientation makes the microphone within the phone pick up voice much clearer creating better conversation and microphone quality. The most outstanding benefit the chin provides is protection. The chin allows the phone to be put screen side down without the screen ever coming into contact with any surface…clever. This is an impressive design feature incorporated by HTC that prolongs your screen quality from scratches. However the Chin has been very controversial with users, but from a design perspective I believe it is very impressive, hey what do you guys think? Leave a comment below ;)

Picture showing various angles of the Hero, giving you a good idea of the aesthetics of the product. Particularly note the chin feature that gave the product the element of innovation and made it unique.

The shape of the hero is pretty basic to put it bluntly. However basic is not a bad thing and some of the most successful designs come from basic ideas. The shape is based on a general touch screen phone shape that is pretty much…. Big screen, few hard key buttons, and shape the rest of the product around that. However the introduction of the chin makes the phone unique and slight curves around the edges makes the phone very good in the anthropometrics department. The phone fits my hand perfectly in portrait and landscape mode. The materials used in the shell of the product also enhance its experience. HTC used a very strong ABS as the shell that can undertake damage from drops. They also cleverly coated this material in a thin layer of vulcanised rubber. This enhances grip of the product. Another little clever improvement HTC have made using a basic material. The weight of the product is a little on the heavy side for my liking, which pulls down the products ergonomic design. However, the weight also makes the phone feel solid and of good quality in the users hand.

Technology and key features!

Technology is important in product design. A product that will push the market forwards will 8 times out of 10 endorse recent technology. HTC certainly ensured this phone would be up to date with technology at the time of release and the future. The screen is a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution. This was a large resolution screen at time of release but this has soon become the normal in touch screen phones. The touch technology is very impressive and still beats most phones released today. It supports haptic feedback, multi-touch and probably the most important feature of the android system…long press. Long press brings a quick way to access pop up menu’s in applications and makes the user experience much easier to use and fast. The screen also has a polytetrafluoroethylene coating that protects the screen from grease marks and scratches. This smart material also allows easy wiping away of any marks by using your jumper basically, easy. Definitely beats flapping around for a ‘screen friendly’ cloth. The phone has a 5.0 megapixel colour camera with auto focus. Although phone cameras are rubbish compared to proper cameras, this camera still beats many phone camera’s today, apart from one thing…NO FLASH….I mean seriously this could have been incorporated into the phones design with some thought….surely. Another feature of the hero that is a very important piece of technology is the Trackball. Although I wouldn’t call this new technology, I think it is a vital feature of the phone as it allows users an alternative way to scroll and navigate their way. Successful products usually give the user the choice of doing something, as this opens up the target market considerably. These are my top technological features of the phone that paved its success. The phone also holds the latest wireless interface making wireless connection easy and effective increasing consumer satisfaction. There are more, but you wouldn’t want to read more of my ramble about technology, but feel free to look it up…. So mooooving on….

Picture showing the Trackball and hardkeys in more detail. The trackball is an important piece of technology that allows the user choice on how they navigate.

The auto focus 5 megapixel flash is a great camera for phone standards. HTC used this technology to keep the camera relevant even now...but where is the flash?!??!

… to the more basic features that also make this phone great. One of the key selling points of the product is the 3.5mm headphone jack implemented into the design. This feature is a universal component that allows hundreds of different products to be plugged into the phone. This opens up the product to many more potential buyers and therefore HTC designers did a wonderful job of introducing this into the phone. The Hero was one of the few phones that had this feature creating a competitive edge… and since then most phones are adopting universal features such as the standard 3.5mm jack. The other feature I also want to give a mention is the USB interface integrated into the software and mainframe of the phone. HTC gave this a multi-use purpose, which once again opens up the target market. Obviously the phone connects to your computer by this way, but more cleverly the USB lead connects to the wall plug making it a charging point. This is also clever from the manufacturers perspective as it saves money as the mould is not as complicated to produce.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is another design feature that appeals to potential users. Millions of people have headphones and other products that fit this. 

The Good Design in a nutshell…

SO Time for a round up session of what is good about the design of this product. The innovation and flare shown in the shape of this product really does impress me. The aesthetics of the phone are brilliant, almost daring, but it is clear HTC wanted to make this phone distinctive, unique and ‘quietly brilliant’ for their new software experience. The sleek look makes the phone modern, almost futuristic enabling it to keep modern with phone fashion over the next few years. HTC sense is also an outstanding development from HTC design team making the ergonomics of the product one of the best. The user experience is absolutely stunning making every task fun, easy and most importantly quick… well relatively. The technology integrated into this product also enhances the user experience and keeps the phone modern and competitive with phones been released today. This phone is also a great example of how simple materials can have a huge difference on the products quality and function. Vulcanised rubber and the polytetrafluoroethylene coating added to previously known materials makes the user have a better relationship with the product as they just make life easier and have significant purposes.

And the Bad Design + my Improvements…

There are several minor improvements I would make to this phone if I personally designed it. I would use more of the space around the edge of the phone by either making the overall size smaller, or by making the screen bigger. This would make the product look sexier in my opinion and would have made the screen size more competitive with phones today. I would also make the ‘geeky bits’ more relevant such as the phones ram, which should have been 512mb instead of 288mb. Again this would make the phones life longer as it would be more competitive and people would not feel the need to get the latest phone with more ram and a bigger screen each time one is released. This personally annoys me how the phone market expands so quickly and a lot of people feel the need to get the latest phone… its just such as waste of materials and manufacturing energy when you can make products have a longer life with slight improvements. Another key improvement is the need of a flash… I am sorry HTC but you could have easily incorporated a flash for the camera. This would have increased sales further more because a lot of people love using camera’s at clubs, parties etc, but at night this camera is virtually useless.

I believe they could have made more use of the space where I have highlighted to make a bigger screen, this would have made it even more competitive with bigger screen phones. I also believe they should have designed a flash that could fit where I have dabbed in orange.

Finally…

SO the HTC Hero is a great piece of product design. It shows how simple improvements to existing designs can make that huge difference on the market. Alongside this it also holds some very distinctive features that are iconic and make the product recognisable. The chin and HTC Sense were probably the most noticeable selling points of the product, especially the latter. HTC designers really proved themselves when they needed to design a phone to launch the most important software the company released last year to go hand in hand with Android. . . BRAVO to them.

The design of the phone has helped the company win several awards including, the stuff awards winner, mobile choice consumer awards ‘phone of the year’, T3 gadget awards ‘phone of the year’ and T3 gadget awards ‘gadget of the year’ for the HTC Hero.

‘A hunch is Creativity trying to tell you something’ – Frank Capra

http://www.htc.com/uk/product/hero/overview.html

The HTC Hero.

So there you go, my first detailed design post. What do you guys think of the HTC Hero? Would love to hear from you so comment below. Next week I will do a completely different product with more design related features to write about as I felt this phone had distinctive design features but phones nowadays focus more on the software design so it was quite hard to keep focused on the design of the product… see you soon.

X