Acrylic travel journal

Opening the main cover of the acrylic book that will reveal the screw bind and hinge

The back cover of the acrylic book which looks exactly the same as the cover

The side view of the acrylic book, with 4 layers of acrylic sheets exposed


The final finish of the travel journal that now has a transparent acrylic cover instead of the previous black leather finish. The cover will most slightly be completed with a vinyl sticker which indicates that it is travel journal. The travel journal is quite light and portable because the acrylic sheet used was picked to be light weighted. If I have ample time, I will be doing another 2 more travel journal which will be filled up with the experiences done in Korea and Tokyo.

Making of acrylic cover travel journal

After sketching out and visualising different ways of designer the acrylic cover for the travel journal, I managed to get help from a friend who majors in product design. With his skills, drilling and cutting of the acrylic is so much easier and time savvy. The only difficulty faced was that the acrylic glue couldn't stick the hinge and the acrylic for long which makes it a little fragile. The whole idea of redesigning the cover to be acrylic instead of the black faux leather is to blend into the usage of the same art direction, so that my outcomes will look like a series. Also, I was thinking that having a see through cover would make people curious and want to see the contents of the journal with a little exposed on the outer few pages, almost like a sneak peak. Now that I've learned how to operate the machines, I can consider depend on myself if I still need a few acrylic covers or for any other outcomes.

Redesign outcome 2 : travel journal

The plans for the repackaging of outcome two, this time instead of using the black leather as a cover. I am considering to make an acrylic cover for the travel journal. I am also thinking of using a 1mm thick acrylic as it is lightweight and easy to carry, which is the whole idea of this outcome. The travel journal is for users to bring it to places and document their experience. Changing to acrylic instead of black leather will make my outcomes look more like a series. Also, using the acrylic makes people curious to want to see the contents of the journal which is like a sneak peek. With all these planning done and materials shopped, I am going to spend a few hours next week in the work shop to complete it. And also in time to showcase for work check in week 9.

App wireframe

After work check during week 7, the feedback given to me was to start on the app wireframe, concept and workflow. The work I've shown during the work check were more like the art direction which wasn't enough. However, I would be sticking to the same art direction and  layouts. 

I've found a few developers that are willing to help me with the app. With no app knowledge and background, I proceeded with some research on what wireframes are because I am unfamiliar with the terms. Basically the wireframes works like a diagram and are screenshots of how one button or option links to another.

The idea of this app is to gather more experiences, and encourages designers to think about their experiences. It is also a medium to record inspirations and helps to remember the experiences. Also, it is a space for documentation of experiences and at the same time, a memory space.

I've roughly sketched out the few screen shots of the process of opening the app and signing up. The user will have his or her own account which makes it more personal. 

I printed out the screen samples that of the app during the work check and amended some parts of it. And to see which button or images links to another. Having this printed out, it makes a clearer picture for me to visualise, from here I learned about what I lack and the things that can be scraped away.

I also added in the extra page and function, which was a geo tag. I think that having a geo tag would be a brilliant idea because it shares with other users the location, and they can personally head to the same location and experience themselves. Moreover, I believe that different people have different experiences even though it is about the same object. 

I've sent this sketches and wire frames to the developers so that they get a clearer idea of what I am trying to achieve. To summarise, this app functions like instagram just that it revolves around the 5 senses experience. I am planning to meet the developers this week as soon as I can and get the app started, since I have to wait for the chemistry apparatus to arrive and can't start on building the scent machine. Even though I have no knowledge in building an app, I will try my best to learn about it and make it a great outcome.

Finding myself amongst others

With so much research done, and chancing upon so many designers with interesting works that revolves around smell. I found myself being pulled into different directions and tend to stray away from my initial intentions.Sometimes I found myself having common factors with the ideas of the other two designer's works and I tend to get excited and want to sort of do the same thing. Therefore, I decided to settle down and look through my objective of my project and also list down the objectives of two other designers so that I do not get mixed up and confused.

Olivia Alice 

Grandma's Jumper

Objective :

• Retain the smell of a person after he or she has passed on
• Using fractional distillation method
• Obtain smell, liquify smell
• A service

Amy Radcliffe

Scentography

Objective :

• Shift focus off visuals
• Visuals flattened our experience, dulling of other senses
• Capture smell through memory

Jiayi Watt

Made Up Curiosity

Objective :

• Documenting our experience for inspirations 
• Enhance curiosity with the use of our senses
• Encouraging people to use the five senses

Grandma's jumper

"This project explores the life (and death) of a garment that is left behind when someone passes away. When keeping an item of clothing that belonged to a deceased loved one, it acts as an instant reminder; it can evoke memories and a sense of nostalgia. Some people may feel an obligation to retain an item simply due to its associations, even though it may be disliked aesthetically and never worn again.

By extracting the essential elements that are embedded within the garment – such as scent, colour and DNA – the original form would become obsolete. By deconstructing the clothing and extracting its composite and essential elements, we might be able to keep the associated memories without having to retain the physical object.

​The byproducts of this process would be a coloured liquid, a steam distilled scent and DNA-rich ashes. These substances could then exist as a new set of memorials, which may be distributed amongst relatives or utilised in new ways."
Recently, I also found another brilliant artist with a project that left such a big impression on me. Olivia Clemence, a scent artist, who was previously from Goldsmith was the owner of this project. Her project is about remembering and reminiscing through the sense of smell, which was similar to what I want to achieve with my outcomes.

Also, her idea of achieving smell is through the use of a fractional distiller. Just that her fractional distiller is really a big setup, also her distiller is raw and exposed in the sense that the audiences get to see the process and how the smell is extracted. Also, this outcome serves as a service unlike the scentography machine which is portable and user friendly. Her works will surely be an inspiration for my scent machine, because we share the same idea of using a chemistry method to retrieve smell that links to memory. 


Credits to : 

http://www.verydesignersblock.com/2012/09/23/scent-distillery-with-olivia-clemence/


http://sensorymaps.blogspot.sg/2012/10/a-distillation-of-memory.html

Scentography

I chanced upon this project weeks ago when I was planning to design my final outcome that is a concentrate on smell. However recently, I found this work being talked about greatly and much appreciated. And I finally understood why it was so raved about, and I am loving both the design and concept of scentography. Also, I found some identical traits in our work and I can't help but to agree along with the research from my essay."The world in 2013 is a very visual place. We are compelled to document every inane part of our days, updating our Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr streams with questionably filtered photography of even more questionable subject matter. Our tastes and impulses are hyper-visual, which contributes, some say, to a flattening of experience, dulling what would otherwise be enriched by the input of our other senses."

Scentography is about capturing our experiences and memories through the sense of smell because we have been so concentrated on the sense of sight and relied on it so much we have forgotten the other senses. The designer of this project who is from Central Saint Martins, Amy Radcliffe explains that “we’re so snap-happy that amateur photography has become almost disposable.” Her “Scentography” camera aims to introduce other sensory channels into the mix that would more vividly capture memories--namely, through smell.

The scent machine acts like a camera, with just a click on the button, it captures the smell of the object. "The Madeleine is a portable lab that records and archives smells and then (ideally) preserves the “smell memories” they yield in small, glass vials. The process of capturing the odor is simple: Just place the plastic dome over the object whose scent you want to extract, then attach an “odor trap” over the central mechanism. The unit is connected to the dome and trap via a set of tubes that suck the scents from the former to the latter."

As compared to Grandma's jumper, the artist invented and designed her scent machine so wonderfully that is why it is so talked about as it is such a smart concept. Also, her scent machine is more portable and user friendly because it is so simple and all the user has to do is just flip a switch. 

Credits to :

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1673024/check-it-proust-a-camera-that-captures-memorable-smells#3

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jun/28/scentography-camera-records-smells-memory