Example Brief with Assessment Outline for a product design visualization paper

DC3
chris ebbert


Hello,

Welcome to DC3. In this paper, we are going to explore all known presentation techniques in product design, and try to bring our presentation skills up to near professional levels. We have 12 weeks together, in which I will be able to see you for 2 hours per session. There will be four deliverables within that time, each worth 25% of your mark. They are:

1. Your drawing log (due Friday 12pm, week 19)
2. Your sketches (due Friday 12pm, week 11)
3. Your presentation drawings (due Friday 12pm, week 15)
4. your rendered CAD model (due Friday 12pm, week 19)

Phase One

Sketching
Assessment criteria of our first presentation:

We want to create real designer grade sketches – think “documents”, things with a trade value. You are going to be billing for those before long – make them look the part.

They must be a documentation of our thought processes, and there is nothing flighty about them. They are clean, firm, elegant pieces of work with flawless perspective and delightful, artistic touches such as shading and highlighting.

These are our criteria:

1. A demonstration of breadth in exploratory sketching
2. A visual image that fits the brand and product you have chosen
3. A unified look to all your individual presentation boards
4. Proper labelling – name, project name, company logo, date, variation name
5. Sufficient bulk (sturdy materials, large enough format, filled with a satisfying amount of sketching)
6. Neat lines, done in Illustrator or with French curves; no pencil
7. Faultless perspective
8. Meaningful picture itinerary to explain how the object works and how it gets assembled/ what parts it is made of (configuration drawings would be good)
9. Well-chosen views of object
10. Neat, written explanations and referencing on the sheets (no serif type font)
11. 100 working sketches, give or take 20. All tricks allowed as long as used responsibly (photocopies, scans, CAD, etc.), in a folder
12. 3 – 5 neat presentation boards, complying with all of the above except point 11, of course.

Phase Two

Presentation Drawings
Assessment criteria of our second presentation:

We are at stage two of three with our visualization process.

Stage one were our sketches, an exploration of the topic with as broad a range of possible outcomes as imaginable, documented by an impressive stack of process work, and culminating in the selection of three mounted key sketches.

Stage two is now all about communicating a sense of “homing in” on a final solution to your client. Using your three key sketches, you will now create three highly accurate hand drawings of good, artistic quality, which demonstrate in something approximating production outcome visuals how the new product will look - in three meaningful variations.

These are our criteria:

13. A demonstration of detail resolution (ways of hinging components, assembly of parts)
14. An exploded view of each version
15. An assembly drawing of each version
16. A visual image that fits the brand and product you have chosen
17. A unified look to all your individual presentation boards
18. Proper labelling – name, project name, company logo, date, variation name
19. Sufficient bulk (sturdy materials, large enough format, filled with a satisfying amount of sketching)
20. Neat lines, done in Illustrator or with French curves; no pencil
21. Faultless perspective
22. Well-chosen views of object
23. Written explanations and referencing on the sheets (no serif type font)
24. Absolute neatness, in colour, A3.

Phase Three

Rendered CAD model:

These are our criteria. They are simply checked off for being there. Every one is worth 5% of this last project phase’s mark, which is 25% of the whole mark for this paper:

1. It’s a Powerpoint presentation or similar slide format, manageable by people who do not understand digital imaging and are merely users, as your clients most likely would be: Yes/ No (underline)
2. Your name is on every slide: Yes/ No (underline)
3. The project- or product name is on every slide: Yes/ No (underline)
4. The client’s brand name on every slide: Yes/ No (underline)
5. The beginnings of the project are also part of the narrative: Yes/ No (underline)
6. Your CAD model is actually finished as intended: Yes/ No (underline)
7. Your CAD model has been rendered with materials: Yes/ No (underline)
8. Your CAD model has been rendered with shadows: Yes/ No (underline)
9. Your CAD model is sitting in a meaningful environment: Yes/ No (underline)
10. Your CAD model is realistically lit: Yes/ No (underline)
11. You have added detail to your CAD model which helps make it look more realistic (split lines? Hardware?) : Yes/ No (underline)
12. You have successfully built elements in your CAD model which reflect the necessities of manufacturing and therefore deviate from the CAD ideal, making the object look more like a photographed prototype (e.g. modelled split lines in 3D which actually have “meat” on the split edges) : Yes/ No (underline)
13. You have made use of CAD to explain the object in its single parts, as in an exploded view: Yes/ No (underline)
14. You have created more than 10 slides: Yes/ No (underline)
15. Your perspective millimeterage is appropriate: Yes/ No (underline)
16. Your chosen perspectives are realistic: Yes/ No (underline)
17. Your CAD model actually looks like a photograph of a real object: Yes/ No (underline)
18. Your model’s surfaces are clean: Yes/ No (underline)
19. Writing accompanies your images enough to make the presentation self-explanatory: Yes/ No (underline)
20. Your imagery is of faultless pixel quality and large enough to fill the screen: Yes/ No (underline)

The number of checkmarks multiplied by the 5% they are each worth results in your mathematical assessment mark. The actual, academic mark will be the result of calculation with other factors, but as a rule of thumb, 100% is definitely an A, and 50% would be a C-.


Drawing Log (ongoing):

This is where you think, record thoughts, try crazy stuff. It is a record of your intellectual endeavours, your scribbles, your trials and errors, the ghosts of things which may have crossed your mind. All of these are important, and you are welcome to both write and doodle, sketch, draw, whatever you like. Consider it your “product designer’s fevered poetry album” if you like. Start collecting now, please. I expect to see one concept per day, for every day of the coming semester. Inventions, ideas, thoughts you have on things. It’s a diary of your creative mind. When marking this, I will be looking for evidence of:

Dedication
Creativity
Original thinking
Conceptual and inventive abilities
Ability to research and process information
Experimentation and process

… but on the whole, the drawing log needs to be the book that convinces me that you have a deep and original mind.