Daddy Long Leg Lamp
How did my lamp design go from this:
to this:
And finalized with this?:
Well, Let’s see how my lamp design went from a 5 year olds drawing to a polished product!
The beginning: Padlet, Mindmap, and Identifying the audience
Before I started anything, I first set two goals for this project. My first goal was “Quantity> Quality”. Our last project was glasses which meant although you can get creative, it’s very hard avoid the typical glasses frame we all know. However, this one was about a lamp which would let me explore different options. If I focused too much on quality, I would have to give up on quantity which would limit my creativity and options and therefore, I decided to really commit to quantity> quality. My second goal was to really know my audience. Last time, my audience were South Koreans which is a huge audience with different needs. This time, I tried to make the audience more specific so my product is actually useful for their needs. In the beginning, I tried to get as many ideas and inspiration as possible and identify my audience and their needs.
My Padlet:
As you can see, my padlet is more focused on the inspirations for the design aspect of the lamp instead of the function.
Mindmap:
For my mind map, I focused more on the functions of the lamp since my padlet is heavily focused on the design aspect of the lamp.
Identifying the audience
Identifying the audience or the user of the lamp was important because a good product should enhance a person’s quality of life by helping their struggles. Making a bright lamp for a person living in a sunny area with already enough natural light coming into their house would not be the best option. Instead, making an affordable and bright lights for financially struggling people in darker areas would be a better option as it helps both of their struggles. Therefore I have made categories to help identify what my user needs. This is a generalization and therefore might not be fully accurate nor be the same for everyone but is a solid guide that should work for most people.
Age:
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Super Young (1-4): If the users are this young, parents are mostly like looking for a lamp for uses like a nightlight since babies tend to be scared of the dark. Therefore, the lamps should prioritize the safety and design of the lamp over function. The lamp’s design should aim to have designs that calms children. The lamp’s material and design should also be safe and avoid using toxic materials, fragile materials, easily overheating materials, heavy materials and avoid sharp edges that could stab or poke curious children.
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Young (5-10): These users are still quite young and immature yet they will start to receive work from school around this age range. Parents will likely buy lamps that will help them do homework at night. However, since they are still young and immature, the design of the lamp would be important along with the function. The designs would be helpful if they are from popular kids shows like Spongebob, and Paw patrol.
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Early Teens (11-14): This age range is when the workload intensifies since students will be getting a lot of tests as well as homework to prepare them for high school. Although the aesthetics of the lamp would be important since early teens love to decorate their room that shows their unique character, the importance of function greatly increases. Therefore, the brightness and the aesthetic of the lamp is important.
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Late teens(15-19): This age range is when the workload is intensifies more from early teens because students will now be in high school. Therefore, the function would be more important for this age range. The lamps should be bright, and durable. However, aesthetics are still quite important.
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20+ older: By this age, the aesthetics won’t play a big role anymore. Instead, people will look for a functional lamp that is cheap.
Room environment:
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Modern style: Clean and sharp, visually pleasing and somewhat fresh
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Old style: Nostalgic and antique
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Big desk: Space for the lamp is not limited but the lamp’s light should be able to cover the entire desk.
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Small desk: Space for the lamp is limited but the lamp light does not need to be as bright and wide.
Interests:
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Nature: Animals, plants, insects, and the environment
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Sports: Basketball, Football, baseball and many more
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Space: Black hole, the sun, planets, stars, moon, and the galaxy
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Fashion: Gucci, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton
My user for my lamp:
I believe making a lamp for people like myself would be the best because I know the needs of my self and therefore would also know what type of lamp people like me would really need.
This is what my desk looks like. It is very big and long and I want to use the entire desk. The red part represents the only part where the lamp could be since that’s where the plug is. The yellow part represents the maximum distance that my lamp could cover. The blue part represents the area that my lamp cannot cover. Therefore, even though I have a big desk, I often find myself only using the yellow part of the desk. The problems with my old lamp would be that it would take up too much space, has long wires, and was not capable of providing light for the entire desk, forcing me to use only a small bit of the desk.
User’s need:
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Bright
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Has little wire
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Does not take up too much space
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Lamp covers a lot of area
Settling with my final lamp design: Sketches, and inspiration
Different lamp sketches and inspiration:
1. Ross lovegrove’s design process: According to Ross lovegrove, he gets his inspiration from nature because he loves the “natural growth patterns and the beautiful forms that only nature really creates”. He is also inspired by the unbridled way of growth in nature and how nature grows things without being restricted by form. From his process, I can learn to also design my lamp that isn’t restricted by the typical lamp form but create something unique. Lovegrove’s process of designing the car was also inspired by a streetlamp. I could also use that process and try to find inspiration from things that are even completely unrelated to the lamp because as Lovegrove mentioned, this process will allow my ideas to grow without being restricted by the idea of lamp.
2. Hoopoe bird sketches:
When I first saw the picture of Hoopoe bird, the red bright mohawk was very noticeable. I wanted to focus on the mohawk because I felt that was identity of the Hoopoe bird. Therefore, my first design was a lamp of the Hoopoe bird where its mohawk would light up. This design would emphasize the Hoopoe bird’s mohawk. The second one was a mistake. I thought because of Hoopoe bird’s vivid color and distinct look, the bird would be considered endangered animal. So to spread awareness, I created a lamp that would show a cage when you light up the lamp. But oh well, apparently the Hoopoe bird is a very common bird.
3. Sycamore seed sketches:
This lamp design was inspired by a thing called sycamore seeds. They have sharp edges that is reminiscent of a mace. Therefore, I thought it would be cool if there was a hanging lamp that could have the shape of a sycamore seed. As you can see, the lamp design above has the sycamore seed as the light and shows that it can move and stretch to a designated location. I also decide to make it portable and detachable just in case the lamp wouldn’t be long enough to reach the other side of my desk and I can just detach the sycamore seed and bring it to the other side.
4. Mommy long leg:
Mommy long leg is a character from a horror game. In the game, she is able to catch the main character easily from far distances without having to move her body because her limbs and necks can stretch and bend. If you translate this into the context of lamp design, it would mean the light is able to reach far distances without having the stand move. Therefore, I sketched a lamp where the only the head would extend to reach further distance.
5. Crimson Typhoon from pacific rim:
This robot in pacific rim is one of the strongest because of its three arms. It’s strong because each arm can do different tasks but also they can work together to do the same task more effectively. I though this would be a good inspiration for my lamp. I took the concept of three arms and translated that into my lamp having three different heads with three different light. Therefore, when they are all separated, they can all shine different directions. But when they are together, they can shine the same direction but much brighter.
6. Dreamworks logo:
I have watched a lot of movies and this dreamworks logo was always so beautiful to me because of the moon was so vivid and luminescent in the dark sky. Therefore, I thought having a moon shaped lamp wasn’t going to be too bad and it would be perfect if it was a hanging lamp so it could look like the moon is actually floating above you. I also made it extendable so it could cover the other side of my desk.
7. Super monkey:
The super monkey is known for doing a lot of things and has the ability to shoot bright lasers out his eyes. Therefore, I took inspiration from its vivid color of red and blue, the bright light coming from his eyes and his ability to do multiple things. By putting a clock on lamp, I can reduce the space for a clock and have a single lamp instead.
8. Square Magnet:
One crucial feature of the square magnet is that magnets will always serve its function even when separated or connected. Therefore, I made a lamp design inspired by this square magnet. The initial form of the lamp would be 4 boxes with 4 light heads in each box connected to each other creating one bright light. However, they could be detached into separate boxes and used wherever you want. As you can see from the sketch, one box is shining the right side, while the left side is shining the left. The box can also be attached to the stand and increase its vertical.
9. Toilet paper:
This was just one of those fun ideas during my quantity>quality process where I implemented the stretch feature and mixed it with toilet paper.
Different lamp sketches and inspiration for my final lamp design:
1. First sketch of daddy long neck:
My initial design of daddy long neck was really similar to my super monkey design where I took the color and the shape from. I did remove the bandana and made each eye adjustable so users will have more control over where the light will shine. The red button on top would be the switch to the lamp and the display on the body will show the user’s time, temperature, and date.
2. 3d sketch of daddy long neck:
For the sketches on the right, I used the Orthogonal drawing practice video in DX. I drew the lines to match up the front part and the top part so it is proportionate to each other. For the left side, I have drew a 3d version of my lamp by using the method used in the Isometric drawing video in DX. I also have changed the design a little bit to give more control for the eyeball. That way, users have even more control to where light shines. At this point, my lamp still didn’t have the stretch feature.
Finalization of my lamp and its sketches: Vector design, and presentation
Vector design:
One of the feedback I got from my sketches were that all the shapes were very rough and not clean. In order to improve, I decided to use affinity designer to make a vector version of my lamp much cleaner. I used the line tool as well as the shape tool to create equal shapes of circle and rectangle.
I posted this version on the teams chat and got more feedback for it. The feedback was to finish up the drawing, add the color, and remove the lines so it could be used for my presentation. So I did just that
It was during my vector designing that I made huge changes. First, I made changes to the color itself. I made the colors more vivid and bright because the previous designs had a dark color which would not fit the dark surrounding lamps are usually in. Therefore, making the lamp brighter makes it look cleaner and better in the dark. Another big change I made was the stretch feature. As mentioned before, one of my user’s need was that the lamp needed to cover a wide area. My previous design in the 3d sketches did not have the ability to cover a wide area because it was stationary. So I wanted my lamp to move. However, I also didn’t want the entire lamp to move because that would not meet the space-friendly requirement. Therefore, I decided to only let the head move by taking inspiration from the mommy long leg sketch I did.
Presentation activity:
This was one of the presentations given to us as an example. Here is my analysis:
Good features of the poster:
- It shows real life application and what the product looks like when it’s actually used.
- Not too much text
- Good display of the features
Bad things about the poster:
- Too much picture distracts the viewer from the actual product
Good features of the poster:
- Perfect balance of text and image
- Good usage of colors for the background and the text so that the text as well as the lamp looks much more visible and brighter compared to the dark black background.
- The small amount of text is still very concise and has all the info a user would need.
Making my final presentation:
My first prototype:
I first took two inspirations from the two posters up there. I first made an illustration of daddy long leg in a real life application by placing him on the desk like the goggles poster. Then, I made the background purposely dark so that the light coming from the lamp would look more bright.
For the font, I wanted it to look like the ones on the Ginko lamp. I wanted my fonts to have a neon look. So I first typed Daddy long leg and used outer glow as well as inner glow to give that neon feeling.
However, I still felt like the fonts didn’t look the way I wanted. I wanted to fonts to really look like neon signs shining in the dark. I achieved this effect by first creating a rectangle. Then, I applied Gaussian blur to the rectangle making it look like this.
Then, I put this behind the daddy long leg which gave me the bright neon vibe I was looking for.
The daddy long leg design was taken from the earlier vector drawings I made.
The light from daddy long leg’s eyes were created through similar methods of how I created my font. I realized that the gaussian blur effect played a big role into making things look like light in the dark. So I first created a yellow triangle.
Then I used the gaussian blur tool to make the edges less sharp and got the light I wanted.
Then I created real life objects to illustrate daddy long leg being used in a real life situation.
My second design:
In my second design, I improved a lot of things. I first added more objects to illustrate the situation I am in.(A person who has a long desk full of stuff) Then, I changed the shape of the triangle to emphasize the brightness of my lamp. For the model of daddy long leg, I did the same thing with all my other neon designs. I first took the model from the vector design and layered the same design underneath. Then, I put the gaussian blur on the model below. As for the texts, I included features of the lamp that a user might be looking for.
3rd design:
I first added a “for users with” to highlight how this product will solve problems for which type of people. I also added a measurement to show users how long it can stretch without explicitly telling them. Then I created a second page showcasing going into detail.
This was the feedback I received:
” The overall style is fun and looks great. The first poster is a little busy, BUT the 2nd poster is super clean and clear. You should look closely at both posters and find ways to improve the alignment and spacing – make all the text a little smaller (you can go as small as 12pt for the small text). Clear the edges from text – make a bit more margin space around the edge of both pages so the text doesn’t go right to the edge. Make the name of the lamp slightly smaller and place it in the same position on both pages.”
-Mr. Griffin-
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“Overall style is fun and looks great”: This was a good relief for me because I wanted my poster to be interesting and not boring.
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“The first poster is a little busy, BUT the 2nd poster is super clean and clear. I 100% agree with this feedback as I also believe the amount of images and text between the 1st page and the 2nd page is huge. 1st page looks too full while the 2nd page looks too empty. I needed to fix this issue.
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“You should look closely at both posters and find ways to improve the alignment and spacing – make all the text a little smaller (you can go as small as 12pt for the small text).”: Although I agreed with making the text smaller, I tried 12 pts but felt it was too small next to the daddy long leg model. So I decided to decrease the font size moderately. As for the alignment, I disagreed with the feedback because I purposely made the two texts misaligned so they can stand out on its own.
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“Clear the edges from text – make a bit more margin space around the edge of both pages so the text doesn’t go right to the edge. Make the name of the lamp slightly smaller and place it in the same position on both pages.”: The issue with the text being next to the edge was easily fixable. However, I disagreed with the second feedback. I wanted to the two posters to flow as one poster with the first page showing the name and design and the second page just getting into details. However, putting the name of the lamp on each page would break the flow as it looks like I’m giving a new presentation for a different product. Therefore, I decided not to change.
Final design:
I first decreased the font size of daddy long leg to 75 and the text next to daddy long leg model to 20. I tried my best to align the text next to the daddy long leg model. As for the “for users with”, I purposely put the list from the longest to shortest so that although the texts weren’t aligned, it would still be visually pleasing. As for the second page, I put a description of the LDC display and its features to make the page feel less empty.
Evaluation:
I think the final product I created is almost perfect for the specific user I chose in the beginning. First, the LED in daddy long leg’s eyes are very bright. 500 lumens in each eye is bright enough for outdoor walking which shows that no matter how far the desk is, my lamp will be strong enough to shine on it. Secondly, the neck stretch feature. The neck stretch feature allows the user to freely change direction on where the light shines without having to move the body of lamp. So instead of moving the lamp, the user can just pluck the head and move it to a designated location. Third, the LCD display. Not only does this lamp give you light, it also gives you the time, date, and temperature. Since my users were for people with occupied desks, this lamp alone removes the space needed for clocks and calendars. This lamp kills three birds with one stone. Fourth, the material of the head. Lamps will usually get heated when used for a long time. However, my product is designed so that the users have to touch the head to control the light. Therefore, I created a blend for the head’s material so that it would not get hot even with long uses. Lastly, the design. I think it has very pretty colors and are suitable in almost any environment. Overall, I think this product suits all my user’s needs.