Renate
Individual |5 Weeks | Focus: Rhino & Material design
This project is from a collaboration with Silhouette during my second year at Umeå Institute of Design.
My concept is based on the subsidiaries brand NEUBAU eyewear and is exploring the way Biomaterial can be used to prolong the life of the product and how the end customer can be informed about the next step of the product life-cycle.
HOW MIGHT WE PROLONG THE LIFE OF GLASSES AND HELP THE USER TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN THE LIFE CYCLE?
Problem definition:
Research:
Field research / Interviews / Desktop studies
This project started off with an introduction to Silhouettes values, manufacturing process and field research. It also included smaller group research on materials, common eye diseases, ordering services and how the market looks like today in the eyewear industry.
The main material used in the project comes from the field research and interviews. In the field research I visited three different eyewear retailers, talked with four sellers and one optician.
New materials requires new knowledge
USERS:
Eyewear users of Neubau
BIOPLASTICS:
BENCHMARK:
Eyewear & Sustainability
“ I wish there was a better way to recycle parts that we always throw away. I can’t just put metal frames in metal bin, because of mix materials, so I put it in combustible waste. “
- Eyewear retailer
Offer adjustability
Be more informative
Renewable
Focus points & Exploration:
Based on the research I focused on to develop an eyewear that could nudge the current user to a more sustainable action and to keep in mind the Neubau user group.
I continued defining the research by making a function list, three gateway concepts, a form analysis of Neubau and a mood board based on the brand.
The ideation phase mainly consisted of sketching iteration of the form analysis in Illustrator and later on in Rhino.
The aim was to have a waterproof CAD file in the end that cloud be sent into production.
Final concept:
Renate
/reˈnaː.te/ To be reborn or reincarnated
Renate - the eyewear with two lives. This product is a conceptual solution with the aim to get the user, whether it is the first time eyewear buyer or a charity worker, better informed about the product material and the product’s possible life cycles.
This by providing the user to always have access of the information with a built in biodegradable NFC chip. The product has an external layer of a material called Nuatan, made by Crafting plastic! Studio, which has the ability to dissolve in a home compost so that the users themself can see and be active in the metamorphosis of their glasses
