Defining Phase

This week started off with a mini presentation. I talked about my interest in plastic pollution, mentioned what motivated this choice and talked about the research that I had done. I provided the lecturers with facts and figures about plastic pollution and its effects on our marine life. Additionally, I discussed some of the design pieces made out of plastic, that I had found online and how plastic is not a very common material in design, particularly furniture design, and especially not recycled plastic. Below you can see the board that I designed to give my lecturers and peers a better visual idea about my topic and summarise my key insights.

The overall feedback I got from the presentation was that I should look at plastic in more detail: the specific properties, the manufacturing process, looking into the different types of plastics and their recycling methods. Ewan also suggested to look at beach clean-up projects and investigate what exactly they do with the collected plastic. This presentation certainly helped me to start narrowing down my idea and other areas I should explore.

Our next task was to draft up our own brief, defining what we want to do and what aspect of the design we want to focus on (Design, Technology or People). Personally, I found that quite difficult, I’m not sure what direction to head into and I feel like the topic of plastic pollution is just very complex. I started off my making a simple list of aspects I want to focus on. These included designing a long-lasting product that is found in a household environment, it should be mostly, if not totally, made out of plastic and it should be very affordable.

I wanted the product to have a long lifespan to break the cycle of plastic being used once and then thrown out. The additional focus on a household environment stems from my research, that most furniture pieces last for years before getting replaced. This is typically the reason why furniture can be so expensive, which is why I want to make sure the product(s) that I will design are affordable. I want to encourage customers to purchase products made out of recycled plastic, without setting a huge financial limitation to who can buy them.

For next week I will not only continue researching the topic of plastic pollution, but I will also work on finessing my brief to a point where I feel comfortable with direction that I’m heading into.