Achievements over the last few days:

I have managed to develop an idea since my last blog entry. I was set the task of thinking of ideas of ways in which my product could be seen as ‘environmentally friendly’ – this is almost a fundamental of all products on sale these days. Below I have listed my decisions and revisions with regards to this.

Achievements:

I located books from the library and also web pages which provided me with inspiration. Here I have documented what I have learnt, along with ways in which it has inspired me:

One point that particular caught my attentions was that I should not be creating a product, but instead a lifecycle. This taught me that not only should the product be environmentally sound, yet also that it should have some sort of service – to make it renewable in some respects.

I also learnt that natural materials are not always better – it must be taken into consideration the amount of material used, for example one sheet of plastic would not be seen as too environmentally devastating, in comparison to the wood off of two trees.

I can increase how environmentally friendly my product is by increasing the products life time. This means making it from high quality materials, yet also by making it recyclable.

Another way I could do this was by making it so that the owner did not want to give the product away, for example creating some sentimental attachment to it. It should be durable or upgradeable, or be a sort of memento – with regards to Wellington boots this ultimately means less plastic in land fill sites.

I was directed to the o2 website, which is a global network for sustainable design – I am still conducting research into this site.

My product:
The concept for my product came to me at about half 3 in the morning, when I was struggling to sleep, so I quickly got up and jotted it down.
I thought of the festival scenario and about making friends and wanting to keep in contact with them after the festival – nobodies thinks to bring a notepad, and phone batteries often die – and messages cannot be left on these.
I therefore developed the concept of a Wellington that could be signed with messages, contacts and details.
This would be in a simple colour or transparent plastic, and have a pen attached.
The seminar discussion helped me to develop my idea so that the tread colour was in correlation to the colour of the festival band that year, and the tread would have the number of the festival on it, for example: 08, 09, or 10.
It would have a transparent pouch for the festival ticket to be inserted.

What next?

The next stage is for me to create my written proposal. I will update the blog when this is done.