Studio Blog | Stéphan Angoulvant

Product Design 2

Product Design 2 was the logical continuation of Product Design 1, in which we designed barbecue grills. The theme we were given this time was “products on wheels”. This was obviously a very broad theme, which hints at the aim of the course: concept development. Our goal during this class was to design an innovative product that uses wheels.

I chose to redesign the creeper, or as I prefer to call it, work sled. This is the tool auto mechanics use to slide under cars and make repairs. The final result was designed to be comfortable, nimble and easy to use.

I decided to call my work sled Dexter (from dexterity) feeling it needed a strong personality and a name that communicated stability and precision in motion. The logo was developed in our course ID Graphics.

The first few weeks were dedicated to research. I found that most creeper users are home users because auto shops generally have car lifts.

I soon found out that most readily available creepers are very cheaply made, and often used just a few times before they are discarded.

I isolated three markets for creepers, from low to high end. My creeper was to situate itself at the medium-high end mark, aimed at car enthusiasts who are in need of a well-designed creeper and casual users who could be inspired by such a product to perform their own oil changes regularly.

The Dexter brand, developed around my work sled was to communicate several key attributes shown below.

The course encouraged us to explore many different ideas, here are some of the interesting ones I came up with, including a wearable creeper and a creeper with spherical wheels. Of course all these ideas were based on the research.

As the form was refined, I realized that my work sled started looking somewhat shark-like and tried to integrate this theme in my form development.

The final result was recreated using the CAD software Solidworks which we learned much about in our Solid Modelling course.

I decided to use plywood to create the basic shape of the creeper and explored many resource for fabrication.

Finally I created a mold using CNC-machined ribs. Thin sheets of plywood were then stacked, glued and vacuumed into shape. The final shape was then trimmed, sanded and veneered.

For the final version I created a metal frame that supported both the seat and the wheels, allowing all four to lock into place with one simple gesture. Lights were also integrated in order for users to see under their cars.

The leather pillow was stitched and printed using the Lumi Process, developed by myself and an Art Center classmate.

I embedded magnets under the veneer, giving these tool rests a very intuitive and almost magical functionality! The tools won’t fall off even when the creeper is placed vertically, but they are still easy to remove.

The frame was a complex piece of metal bending and certainly could be simplified in the future, using different materials. The aim was to communicate the new mechanics I had developed to make braking simple.

The following is the poster board that accompanied my final model. You can find a full-size PDF here.

ID Graphics

ID Graphics was a great course I took last semester dealing with graphic design, an all-important skill for product designers to communicate their work.

The course started with an exercise in designing our personal stationery including business cards, resume, envelopes and portfolio pages. I will be rolling out the results here and on my portfolio over the next few months!

Our second exercise was closely tied to our Product Design 2 course in which we created a fictional brand for our product. I chose the name Dexter as the brand of my auto mechanic’s creeper. My goal was to create a logo that communicated reliability and mobility.

I based my design on the beautiful typeface Klavika by Process Type. Over many iterations I came up with the following logo:

The final color schemed hinted at the traditional automotive primary blues and reds. In this case the palette is shifted a bit off kilter to give it a modern look.

Our final project was to create a piece of branding for our product. I chose to create a sticker used for retail.

Solid Modelling

Moving along with my recap from last term, here are images from Solid Modelling. This course was the continuation of Rapid Prototyping, dealing mainly with the CAD software Solidworks. We started the course by practicing our Solidworks skills and replicating the inner workings of the Team Losi Mini T remote-controlled car.

Recreating hundreds of small parts in accurate detail took us some time but eventually we got quite good with the program.

Once we had understood both Solidworks and the mechanics of a remote-controlled car we starting making our own. Our car was to be created in Solidworks and fabricated using only rapid-prototyping methods.

I focused on making mine lightweight and easy to control. Starch or plaster 3d printers tend to create rather heavy prototypes so I focused on creating parts for the laser cutter. I was very pleased with the final result, it drove very well and the instructor chose it for the school gallery! (Picture pending!)

Our final exercises were in learning how to render our 3-dimensional creations and create exploded views such as this one.

Viscom 4

Kicking off my recap from last term here are the sketches from our Viscom 4 course. This course, much like our previous Viscom courses focused on drawing skills. In this particular course we learned techniques for rapidly sketching objects both organic and mechanical. Many of the sketches below were drawn in less than two minutes, while some of the more elaborate ones took about fifteen.

Almost all of these sketches were drawn from life, at one of the many museums we visited during the course. Drawing from life is a great exercise as it helps appreciate the forms better than drawing from photographs. Ultimately, sketching skills require a lot of mileage and in that respect it was a great course.