Industrial Design Project (headphones&speakers)

I started school a week and a half ago. My main class is my ID studio with the notorious Bong Il-Jin as my professor who emphases styling and trend. His classes are never easy for even the best designer but his broken English and comical persona balance out the pain. I'm excited to grow as a designer.

My first project is short, 4 weeks. I choose to design a set of headphones that convert into table top speakers in an interesting way. I've had this idea sitting around for about a year now and amazingly enough there are only 3 product on the market that convert from headphones to speakers. and 2 of them suck while the 3rd is cool but not as cool as what I am planing on making.

- GoStereo’s Tune In Tune Out headphones (suck)
- iHome ihmp5 headphones (suck)
- Jabra BT8030 Headphones (pictured) - (clean and sophisticated but not what I was thinking)

PLEASE Let me know if you have any suggestions of materials to use for the cushioning or ways to make the headband fold up nicely. Or any other advice you have.

Backpack Prototype Completed

Yes my friends. It is done. After 3 months of planning and about 3-4 weeks of sweat shop sewing in my studio, the backpack is done. It doesnt have a name or a presentation board yet. But I can officially say that it is done and fully functional. I am going to take pictures of it in use and detail shots of its features when I get back to the design school in 2 weeks but I have these preliminary shots of it for now...

Isnt she beautiful!

BTW for those new to my blog-a-roo this is work from my college major, Industrial Design. Which will hopefully become my career in December... (don't worry I'll still paint on the side too) ;-)

Fall Semester ID Studio Final Project

*****UNDER CONSTRUCTION****** Check back in a day or two for better pictures and more description....
For my final project, I had to create a working prototype of one of my earlier projects. I choose to do my Safety Torch from October. I changed a few things about the design and simplified the electronics so I could actually get it made in the month I had to do it. Here is the final product...

"Personal Safety Torch" ID Project

Sorry I dont know how to make the pictures any bigger on this page. so just click them and they will get bigger in a new window.

Completed Friday Oct 3rd 2008. But I still have some work to do on it before I put it in my portfolio.

By the way a design portfolio is what gets me a job. It shows examples of my work and abilities as a designer. College grades are not a factor when employers are looking to higher a designer. That's why most design students try to go above and beyond what might get them an A on their projects. and its also why design school is so dang hard!