Prototyping!!!

What do you get when cross a group of intelligent and creative people with this….

 

loads of fun and crazy unrestrained prototypes!!!

This week’s task was to creative as many prototypes for our chosen business idea as possible. So we gathered our supplies, raided our recycling boxes and made magic happen. JumpAr, our team, main focus is guide books. specifically for the Kingston area and as we were still trying to think about what this would mean and would need to have in order to compete with what is already out there in the market.

Everyone seemed to have different ideas of what the guide should be like and it was interesting to have physical replicas of these to insure everyone knew what was meant.

Gin’s idea…

was a pure representation of what i had imagined her original idea to be and so it was good to have this confirmation. She worked very well within her cool chic personality and produced something that I felt would definitely appeal to people who wanted to be in the know and feel like that were living a trendy yet inexpensive lifestyle. She also designed it to have Tabs, which I thought were a small but very effective design to add to something an extra selling point and obviously came from her thinking from the user’s perspective.

Pinar’s ideas…

I particularly really like Pinar’s idea of the oyster card type pouch with a band to carry around. It seemed like she had really though about the idea of it being portable and broken ‘ a tourist guide’ back to what it actually was, a collection of information. What better way to present this than as that-0 information available in one place but stripped of it book bound constraint. She also had though of badges and such promotional items which would be perfect for advertising.

Cristina’s ideas….

Cristina’s idea were similarly unrestrained by the idea of a ‘guide book’. I particularly loved the idea of the pouch with maps and corresponding information. It was basically what people would want as they travelled around Kingston. Images showing them where they are going and information telling them about the place. I felt that she did and has for some time occupied a practical role within the group, this is not to say that she is not idealistic, she is but also manages to pull it back to the right level.

My idea…

I found that as a creative writer, the idea of shedding the book part of the guide book came a little hard to me. I chose to keep it and transform its role as a book. I wanted to create something fun, guide books as sources of information can sometimes be dull, in my opinion, and I wanted to make it stand out from the crowd and express the ease and fun of exploring a new place.

Through the use of funky lettering and a bow I wanted to make it something that despite its size people would be happy to carry around with them, something that they would be happy to refer to. I also thought from my own personal experience of using maps and guide books- I know you usually have to use them when you have an appointment somewhere new. Y0u usually end up rushing around, no matter how much time you leave and end up looking flustered and slighty messy- resolution- add a mirror surface to the back of the book. It was only a small addition but I felt it would definitely be a selling point. 

I also tried to think practically and came up with a pouch on the back to put information such as business cards ands and addresses within- this way you never lost a thing.

We then with our reservations began the next task, which was to within speaking to each other, a pick a prototype and improve it as a group. This turned out to be  surpringly simple as through the use of non verbal communications which at time resembled military signals, we were able to combine the best aspects of the individual prototypes and came up with this…..

A super prototype which had a pouch, a handy carry strap, a badge for advertising, a mirrored back and a sheets of maps with corresponding information. 

In my personal opinion it was amazing!!! Well done JumpAr

Yvonne

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