Brief

Gather three interesting facts about your partner. Use these three facts to design the ideal gift for them, whilst following the ‘Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver’ method from Design Council.

 

Process

My first three words were cat, travel, food. I started looking into what I could create based on the cat, there is so much cat paraphernalia out there however that this on its own wasn’t proving to be very interesting. So I experimented with incorporating the travel and food elements more. One of my earlier ideas was an app that you could use in the airport to direct you to allergen friendly foods for those on restricted diets. This is because one of my partners said they were gluten intolerant.

On the hour each hour for three hours we had to add a random word into the mix. The first word I was given was bird. When I think of birds I think of birdsong, vibrant colours and flight. Flight fit perfectly with the theme of travel and so I incorporated a birds wing into my Cateye logo. I went for ‘cateye’ as a play on words from red eye flights. My second word was game. I realised that this app could be both functional and playful. By expanding the cat theme to become a Pokemon-go style collection game, I could integrate the second word pretty well. The idea being that when you find and scan your vegan wrap, you unlock the Cheshire Cat avatar to add yo your family of cats, etc. My third and final random word was milkshake. So I expanded the game idea and included treats to be earned for the cats you have collected.

 

Reflection

At first I found it really hard to just scratch out a bunch of ideas freely that related to my initial three words. I found I was trying to think of something, rather than just jot down all the ideas that were coming to mind. It was then made much more difficult when throwing in really random words at different points along the process. However, I really enjoyed stretching myself in the idea forming process. This wasn’t a method I had tried before, and though it was a challenge I really appreciated how it encouraged me to push my ideas further and experiment more.