It was great to see this post about Napkin Labs today. Last year I consulted with founders Riley Gibson and Warren Ng on the right positioning and strategy that a new an online crowdsourced design firm could take. Clearly we knew from the get go that the current winner-take-all method was harmful to both the creative participants as well as the client. It’s very unlikely that excellent work will be generated consistently from the current crowdsourced model.

We developed a basic idea that an online community could slot right in between the traditional full service firm and the untouchable spec work model. It’s great to see some recognition for what I think is a fantastic opportunity for freelancers and students to participate in big projects and collaborate outside their normal spheres. In a later post, I think I’ll delve a little deeper into the initial ideas we developed that’s turning Napkin Labs into what it is a year later.

As a side note, I’ve been participating in the beta projects and I’m very happy with the quality of participants and the ideas being generated!

In studio at Carnegie Mellon, I worked with Calphalon to explore new markets and products to expand their cookware line. Calphalon provides high quality cookware to several market segments. How can this level of cookware be brought to the grill? Through user interviews, I concluded that a cooking aid is not something gourmet grillers want or need. My direction focused on where I could enhance the experience of eating grilled food, rather than trying to change it.

This project allowed to me to explore personas and helped me get into the mindset of potential users: “David is passionate about his grill. After years of working on an inexpensive gas grill. He spent a lot of money upgrading his back yard and installed a modern outdoor kitchen. With his high-end grill, David buys expensive food and loves to show off his grilling skills to friends and family. As a result he often cooks for 10-20 people in one meal. David wants to make sure his food is getting to guests at just he right time.”

When cooking for a lot of people, grill space is at a premium. Often food needs to be taken off for new food to be put on. This food will get cold while new food is made. Though the food might be good, it is never as good as when it is fresh off the grill. This vessel will create a cooler area inside the grill that will keep food warm without it continuing to cook.

With Lumalive LED fabric, the tent could provide integrated light sources for the interior and exterior, creating a soft light that is much better than harsh flashlights.

Kelty is a brand built on low-cost innovation. The current product line is dependable and admirable, but another look at manufacturing and use of materials will make Kelty’s products once again stand out as a leader in outdoor gear for serious adventurers. The Mantra 6 is a large tent that will most likely be used by a family that is experienced with camping, but not serious about gram-shaving and sparse living. They will most likely have a car to get their equipment where it is needed. By taking a look at the new and interesting materials out there, the tent as a mobile living space can be transformed. Obviously in this exercise, price is no object!

For example, campers have had to deal with the inevitable fact that their metal tent stakes will bend when hammered into hard ground. This can be a big problem when you’re hours from the nearest camping store and your 10 year old has bent half of your stakes. By using a memory metal, such as nickel titanium, you could heal bent stakes right in your campfire, the staple of every camping trip. By having the stakes “remember” their original shape when heated above a certain temperature, a bunch of useless hunks of metal have been revived, saving the camper money and keeping them from being left in the forest as trash.

My whole proposal can be downloaded as a PDF here.

With this roll, I tried to explore maximum depth of field. Using a tripod, I was able to get a depth of field extending from about 5 feet to infinity in many of the shots. Overall, I’m happy with this series. In the future, I am going to be looking into trying to get a little less contrast in development. The bright sun was probably a factor this time. I guess now I have something to look forward to with June Gloom: diffused lighting!

Does the average American want an 800 square foot home? What if it was powered exclusively by solar energy? This is the issue that Carnegie Mellon faced in Solar Decathlon 2007, a competition sponsored by the Department of Energy. This project was my first true interdisciplinary team, comprised of designers, architects, engineers and business students. Our goal was to not only design a house that will win the competition based on functionality, but also be successful in bringing alternative energy to the attention of the average person.

With a space so small, we had to maximize the usefulness of every inch. This helped us realize that a smaller space increases kitchen efficiency and we eliminated aspects of a traditional kitchen workflow that got in the way. We also explored non-traditional sizes of drawers and interesting hinges. This was also a materials project. We sought to include environmentally sustainable materials that still have the quality expected from a professional-grade kitchen.

As the kitchen team lead, I was responsible for organizing the team and assigning tasks. More importantly, I met often with the Solar Decathlon project managers, making sure our ideas were carried forward. It was also my responsibility to present our proposal 3 times over the course of the semester to the full team of 50 people. I learned a great deal about managing the politics of an interdisciplinary project.

The image below is the final concept proposed by the Industrial Design arm of the Solar Decathlon Team. Given an area only 12’ x 6’ to work with, we were able to squeeze in a fully functional kitchen. All of the cabinetry is custom-built white oak. The appliances were furnished by Whirlpool as a sponsor of the competition. The glass bar acts as a backsplash and an intermediary step between the space of the kitchen and the living area, creating a place for informal dining as well as serving large groups buffet style.

In order to test our interaction concepts, the kitchen team built a full-scale foam core model of our proposal. This informed our choices about form and scale, and validated our usability reasearch.