Gergana   Tatarova

PORTFOLIO

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goal:

Create personal brief  for a big  school design project and design... something!

team:

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AumStone

Your peace of mind in the digital age.

This project is very important to me as I felt it was a big test of the skills I had acquired by then -  second semester of my 4th year as a MEng Product Design Engineering student , at that time - on an exchange at NTNU, Trondheim,  Norway.

 

The course description states that we will  choose and/or be given a design brief to work on  throughout the semester following our own process , finding our own ways to deliver and communicate with the customer.

 

My choice was to design for Electrolux Design Lab which turned out unavailable for 2016 few weeks in the project, so this is where the fun (didn't seem like at the time) began - we had to design for the RedDot Concept Awards which meant - design anything within the deadlines.

 

So I had to create something out of nothing - isn't it what our job all about after all.. :D

 

Defining my topic of interest being  using modern technologies (IoT, biofeedback systems, machine learning) to promote positive behavioural change potentially via  gamification techniques and working on it for few months I managed to come up with  AumStone:

 

A durable smart device made to motivate and guide users in the meditative practice using playful tactile, auditory and temperature feedbacks.

It requires no connectivity to use, however synchronising it with a mobile device through a complimentary  phone application adds extra features. It allows for personalised tracking with motivational challenges and rewards encouraging to build a more regular and effective practice as well as upgrading the existing content of the stone.

 

It was quite an emotional journey involving many people, many new discoveries.  I decided it was important to try to describe the process graphically, probably no one could understand it but I, but I still think it's fun to look at.

role:

key skills:

tools:

Working on my own but greatly using various professional input.

Product Manager, Design Strategist, Designer, Copy Writer, Developer

Brainstorming techniques, Sketching, Physical and CAD Modelling, Graphic Design, Mobile app development, Electronics implementation, Video rendering and editing, Design for print, Market research

Design Thinking, Interviews, Storytelling,  Solidworks, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Arduino, 3D printing.

results:

Spring 2016, NTNU

Exploring new areas of design, developing useful skills, while working on something interesting and meaningful.

p.s.... and an  A :D

Throughout the project I managed to create variety of different outputs thus polishing wide range of skills and developing quite some new ones. From researching the market, contacting stakeholders to designing a mobile app,modelling few prorotypes until 3D printing and programming a semi-working one  and creating a video, it was an exciting journey.  If you are interested here is the report I made as a  flippable on-line magazine:

Here is the video, which I consider quite silly, but again its main purpose was to learn to use Adobe After Effects while creating another way of presenting my product.

Some of my prototypes:

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© 2016 Gergana Tatarova

gergana.tatarova@gmail.com

Click here to flick through the Aum Stone Process book.