Carrying on from last week, I evaluated the range of sketches I made. Overall, I realised that the more provocative designs that include visual elements of plastic pollution and water make the problem more obvious. However, I am slightly scared that I will not be able to refine them to a point where the design looks sophisticated and of good quality. Therefore, I think it is best to focus on well-crafted typical table designs but make them out of plastic instead of materials like wood. This will ensure a good design that still focuses on re-using plastic and start the conversation through choice of material. It will also demonstrate that customers don’t have to compromise on their design when purchasing a product made of recycled plastic.
However, since I don’t think a simple design is enough to raise awareness about the problem, I thought about possibly doing a campaign around the product. Creating a brand and raising awareness in an indirect way without scaring people. It would not only mean I have a well-designed product, but also get people to understand the grave impacts plastic has on our marine environments. I dabbled around with possible logos and thought about colour schemes for my campaign.
From there I tried to make further sketches that were loosely based on the companies Doshi Levien (their Beautiful Backside Sofa) and Coil + Drift (their Dusk Side Table in white marble). They were supposed to be organic and somehow a little different to what is already out these. While I felt more confident with those sketches, I still wasn’t happy with them.
While reading about David Trubridge’s Coral Lighting that Chris send me, I realised why I didn’t like my designs: None of them had a proper meaning. Even though the overall theme of the designs is to raise awareness, there was no proper meaning behind the individual shapes. Nothing was visually relating to the problem. I realised that instead of trying to visually display some water symbol, I should rather focus on the animals mostly affected by this problem. I became aware that focusing on one animal and making people aware of how much they are suffering could be a great emphasis for the campaign.
I started off my research about marine animals and their shapes with some small research about how plastic affects specific animals. I came across a very interesting article that focused on sharks and rays. Previously I had always assumed, that plastic is mainly affecting animals that feed off each other and either ingest plastic while eating another animal or eat plastic because they mistake it for an animal. However, the article also mentioned rays, that are water filtering animals and how particularly microplastics are a huge problem for them. They get ingested through animals swallowing water, but they are too big in size to be then filtered out of the body. Thus, ending up in water filtering animals as well.
Once I thought, that I had enough information about plastic affecting marine animals, I started sketching different species and looking at their shapes, trying to figure out what I could use for table designs, but that still resembled the animal.
I even made a small cardboard prototype to figure out what those ideas would look like in 3D.
I still am not one hundred percent sure whether this is the right direction for me, but hopefully my meeting with Polly next week will clear up any questions and concerns I have.