Distinction Doors Evaluation.

Distinction Doors Evaluation.

At the beginning of this project I created a mind map branching each criteria that needs to be met during this project. For each of the set criteria I then displayed how I will achieve them by what I can do during my studio practice that can demonstrate the set work. I could then look back at this to see what I needed to do get achieve a high grade.

I also created a mind map demonstrating the target audience for my doors, 25+. This mind map examine what people of that age group may be looking for in a door, their price range and what style of home they live in. All these factors have helped me conclude my final door designs.

I feel my research is fairly effective. My primary research shows a good range of standard looking doors that I found while walking. Looking at the doors you can tell there is a strong theme for standard doors that helped me with designing my own. I have also demonstrated observational drawings with primary research.

My secondary research was focused on contemporary doors. I looked at various elements of doors and how they can be portrayed in a contemporary/modern way. I looked at the settle of doors itself, handles, colours and windows that are commonly found on contemporary style doors. Researching doors via Pinterest has been a main element in helping me conclude my theme for doors during this project. I also did this for my research into the theme ‘Let the outside in’ giving me an understanding into what doors similar to the nature theme can look like.

I feel my artist/designer research has been very effective. I have looked at both artists and art movements for this section. As I am fond of architecture I have looked at a range of modern architects that overall have influenced me greatly when designing my doors. I have examined their styles of work and construction methods in their designs and briefly explained for each architect why I like or dislike their work and how they have influenced me in designing my own doors, or how they haven’t. The main architects that have influenced me are Norman Foster and Frank Lloyd Wright. I have taken small elements of their work such as glass and oak and applied them to my door designs.

For the art movements I briefly explained what each one was and what it was I liked or disliked about them. Neither of the art movements influenced me in designing as I wanted to keep my glass in my doors plain and simple and it would not have been achieved using either movement.

The first thought to let the outside in was nature; flowers, bright colours, animals. However, I didn’t want to create a door that had stained glass flowers and nature based patterns incorporated onto it, as it was to be presented to Distinction Doors I wanted to create a series of doors I felt people would want as their front door. Therefore I wanted to keep the door in its simplest form. After researching different architects I interpreted the theme literally, creating a door that was made from completely clear glass would visually let the outside in. I also looked at different materials that would do this, eventually deciding to use solid oak and it is a very naturally material.

I found designing for the specified target audience was fairly easy. As we were asked to design contemporary doors I felt designing these for 25+ was a lot easier than it would have been if it was for a target audience of 65+. However, I did struggle at first with finding ideas to design from as I felt the theme was quite difficult but after researching different architects I felt a lot more able and confident with designing doors that would fit this target audience.

Whilst creating these doors I did very little planning and organising before I started designing. I did not sketch out designs that I could work from, I worked straight from my head to the software. I researched different architects that gave me a solid idea of which aspects I wanted to add into my work but from that I did no planning or preparation to work from.

A main skill I have used whilst designing my doors is measuring. As I have used Google Sketch Up, I have had to insert accurate measurements of the door so that it looked correct and all fit together. In order to do this I have had to research some measurements of the door such as a standard height and width. I have also had to use a creative skill in order for my door designs to be somewhat original.

While designing my doors I have had no problems that I have needed to overcome. However, I did find it rather difficult to come up with good, original ideas in the first place. This was overcome by researching different architects that inspired me to start designing doors.

Compared to the last projects I have not rushed to get work complete as all the work has been completed before the deadline. As there has been no workshops during this project I believe it has helped me massively on getting all my sketchbook work and research completed before the deadline.

I have found working for a real client very stressful. My usual approach to work is that if it goes wrong it doesn’t matter, but in this situation, if anything goes wrong, I will be presenting a set of badly designed doors to a professional company. I am usually very bad at managing time, therefore throughout this project I have been pushing myself not to get behind on work as I cannot afford to be a day late on anything.

For my presentation to Distinction Doors I have uploaded all my designs onto a memory stick so I can show the company all the work I have produced on Google Sketch Up. I have rehearsed what it is I am going to talk about describing the processes I have gone through when designing my doors and what influences have helped me while designing. In case technology fails on the day of the presentation I will print out A3 images of the doors I have created so I still have something to show to the company.

If I were to do anything different, I would design my doors on design sheets instead of on Google Sketch Up as I feel using this software caused a lot of difficultly, such as locking files, deleting hours of work and needing updates to load work, would have been avoided if I had drawn them instead.