sketch a day : Mar 16th

Sketch a day : Mar 15th

sketch a day : Feb 27

ME 109 - ..........

Sketch a day : Feb 26

Mice.........nice..........

Sketch a day : Feb 25

Carsssss..........

Sketch a day : Feb 24

Random doodles

Inspired by Sketch-a-day.com

I have been an ardent follower of sketch-a-day.com not only because of the great work displayed there but also the motivation to start sketching myself. I however cant be that organized to post one every day but i have been sketching everyday but i am gonna post it weekly or maybe i might squeeze in more time to actually post everyday. Thanks Spencer.

Product survey

So i have been working on building several new avenues for some cool products and as many of you know that would not be a possibility without the right research frame work in place.

My strategy has always been to know the user and their behaviors including everything that they are conscious of or sub consciously aware of. We did a complete evaluation of how products are perceived, how accessories are viewed, what would be the attention span of the product on the shelf, how would communication be useful if it was implied were some of the questions we asked ourselves.

To also delve deep into our consumers, looking at brands and spending trends gave us a lot of key demographics which were extremely useful. Also some other info i was looking up has given me a great insight into just the iphone market.

Here are some great stats related to the mobile industry i ran into as well on the internet just to give you an idea of what an expanding research market this would be.

Finally please take my product survey with which i can ascertain some true input from the actual consumers.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9T3BLJX

Final car sketch.

So playing with a lot of brushes and options i was intrigued with the effects i could get, so i used my existing car sketch on the blog as well, that took close to 30 mins, the lighting and brushes effects took another 15 .....all over it was a satisfactory effort.

It also was a good birthday present.....

Our design video on our company website - www.case-mate.com

So after the release of our product the ID case, we were asked to put together a few words for a short video that could showcase our users the depths we went to as far as our design process is concerned. One thing i am very very proud of is our wall which has a huge bunch of sketches there..... I have to say Ben Haulenbeek our resident director, producer, camera man, audio guy, ace photographer, super marketeer put this whole thing together, i will see if i can get some B roll video clips to post here, we had some great fun filming till 1.30 am in the morning.

Check out the video here :

Designed from I.D

The I.D case launched today and i am very happy about our designs making it out of the door through manufacturing and out into consumer hands. What more does a designer want?, except a lot of dough to get some cool stuff ......

Long story short, the case was a great challenge to think how people would use it. The initial brief comprised of having cards inside and you had to pop your phone out to access your cards. The design of it involved a lot of thinking on how it could be removed, and how the phone itself would be handled and what would be subtle indicators to keep the functionality intact. Like the subtle edge curves which still make it extremely thin but also hold the cards at a certain grip where in the cards dont come in contact with the iphone at all or the 3 little raised ridges that provide traction for people with sticky fingers...naahhh, were features we were very careful about and also the push tab at the bottom, we matched every line and detail.

A lot of thought was put into it including the security of the card, the user displaying it is only displaying a functionality where you can see that the case can hold cards, but it shields all the information on your card from onlookers making the perception of keeping your credit cards intact as well.

I am very happy with the design, including the CAD for the manufacturing as well along with my buddy Alex marshall, Yu Chih and of course Fairbanks.

Car sketch

Has been a long time since i sketched cars, also this time with my new found interest in using color and light to convey surfaces rather than just lines and sketch work, i tried to use a different method to render my work. This was just 30 mins in painter, will update the final sketch pretty soon.

Painting with Brushes.

I saw the movie Death race yesterday and could not help but wanting to create the rusted look of the cars and also the really worn out twin red stripes on the mustang. So i got to work on some brushes that i created and suddenly i had this thought in my mind that i should do a painting. It has been a while since i have done one and since it was a new week, i thought about monday and this is what my expressions were i guess. I call this the " Rising Sun".

Alex Marshall added to my fav links.

Hey guys,

Had to add my buddy Alex marshall, has some sicknasty stuff on his blog. Check him out in my fav links.

Had to go back to my roots.

A few weeks ago i ended up going to raleigh yet again, but this time i had time to hang out with my buddy wang. We were playing street fighter and i thought id go a bit ethnic. Damn capcom made the Asian guy RYU way cooler than DHalsim....even though he's got some cool moves...i still play RYU though...

Something i ran into on the way to work.

Had to post this....random pic though, thought it was interesting, the whole vehicle was covered with Stickers, all which had a message, now this i consider to be a great way of advertising if there were any affiliation to a brand or a product that to be sold. I would certainly try it, and everyone would obviously notice. Had to airbrush the person out, dont wanna offend anybody.

Supermarine spitfire.

Guess i dont have time to carve any wooden models, so i switched to die cast models. Some of them you can get which are insanely detailed. I have two in the works, the ME262 and the Fokker DR I triplane ( yes you guessed it right - the one flown by Manfred von richtofen, AKA the Red baron, one of the greatest pilots to take to the skies.)

The supermarine spitfire is a legend, there was no aircraft more feared or respected by the Luftwaffe than the spitfire, even though the Hawker hurricane shot down more aircraft, coz they were assigned to bomber protection. The spitfire had a faster climb rate, equipped with twin cannons and was more maneuverable than the enemy, even though this is very debatable due to the amazing Messerchmitt ME 109 and later the Focke wulf 190. Even as a small kid every war comic i read had a clash of these two aircrafts. Other than the Lamborghini muira, the SR 71 blackbird, the spitfire is one of the most awesome machines built and it now stands on my shelf as part of the collection.

Had to post the background design

I was overwhelmed by tweetdeck and its awesomeness but sometimes i do go to the twitter page on a browser and as and when i started looking at some really cool personalizations on the profiles i could not stop thinking about it. Now i dont know if my brain has been telepathically monitored by G-14 or not, i recieved the usual plain stamped envelope on my doorstep which requested me to design the twitter background for G-14. So i was like here i go....the result is this.

Sketchup and some new things comin your way

I have never had the time to get off Alias or Solidworks or maya or catia or unigraphics or Pro E to actually notice how much fun Sketchup is. On the weekend i started to sketch some guns and battle turrets for you know what - of course G14, and i could not stop wonderin why i had to spend so much time to model this crap in one of the fancy 3D modeling softwares if i was gonna slap some good textures on it and spend more time rendering. I downloaded sketchup and i am so freakin pleased with its intuitive interface and ease of tools. This is a blessing for people who are new to 3D, understanding the 3D space and not only navigating it, but also visualizing the same is something a learner can grasp very easyily. The transition to one of the better softwares is so much easier. I wonder how the big wigs at school have missed this. Understanding why certain solids or surfaces behave the way they do, the concept of building a 3D model is what needs to be taught, not the software itself. This is something sketchup does very well and i keep going back to my engineering classes where my prof continuously insisted on learning the basics right. How shapes interact, this also gives us a very clear understanding related to styling, why did u want to shape that edge that way.......i am glad this has been an eye opener. Ohh and by the way watch out for some stuff from this.....

100 days

I remember this movie, a very cheezy hindi movie called 100 days, actually it wasnt bad at all which i saw as a kid, it was titled 100 days. I am not talking about that but actually completing 1oo days at case-mate.

It has been a very interesting 100 days, a lot of new things i have learnt, a lot of things that i had forgotten i have had to rejuvinate, a steady routine (Thankfully) and a great deal of knowledge. To understand how designers would work with other departments and various personalities has been extremely interesting, so interesting that i had to start observing some very common attributes. People like being in a group, the lone ranger is not the role you want to play. Now when we look at objects , its kinda the same way, when designers design a product, it is always placed in an environment that they belong in. I have also learned that the quicker you are, the better you get at it. I used to put all my energy and effort and thought into a simple photoshop rendering, using paths, masks and what not, but to convey information, a very simple scribble in sketchbook pro is enough. A simple idea could be the next best thing, or some very complex engineering could be just dismissed as " whatever". Its at the end of the day getting the job done that matters.

But honestly in how many companies do you get a chance to hang out with the CEO, talk about everything under the sun, i actually get a shoulder massage every day...now isnt that appreciative enough....hell yeah it is. I work with some very intelligent people, very smart and also some are just plain freakin hilarious, all part of a really good team. I also have an opportunity to observe and learn the entire product development cycle. Day to day logistics, the nightmares of inventory, storage, sales, tacos on fridays, getting hit in the head by darts, nerf guns and dogs at work, can it get better than that.....noo way ....All in all i have all the right reasons to get up early on a monday morning and rush to work. By the way did i mention i get to design some cool sheaat......ohh yeah.