Here is my final USB! All done and dusted. I feel very happy with the overall product. I have enjoyed this project and learnt many skills that I will use again. I feel more confident on Pro Engineer and the laser cutter. I have learnt to take my time with a project and how to organise my time more productively (i.e, don't leave everything till the last minute!) I will also spend time getting wood and other materials to the highest quality finish i possibly can, it makes a big difference! 

And here it is! My final packaging. Its simple and effective. I wanted to stay away from making a standard box/cube shape and make something a little bit different. The outside design looks like a classic greeting card, inside there is a slip of card with an envelope style pouch for the usb. It is all secured with a navy blue ribbon. I originally wanted to do this design on simple white card but the result wasn't the sharp, crisp idea I had in mind so switched to the navy blue, which in my opinion, works better. 

This was my first attempt at making my USB casing. It is quiet simply awful. The two pieces don't match up, the etching is off center and the finish is highly unprofesional. I rushed my finish, once taking my work off the CNC machine I was excited and eager to finish. However, I learnt alot from this. I started again and took my time. I paid attention to detail and made sure my finish was as good as I could possibly make it

This might look like a scrap of acrylic but it really did save my project! It helped me to line up my work correctly on the laser cutting so my etching was central. In future projects I will use this method, its quick, simple and easy. 

This was a tester for my etching. It went okay and I had no major problems, however, I hadn't thought about lining my work up to make it central, which became a problem when I started to make my final product as it was off centre. 

I made these on the laser cutter, which were all originally designs for my packaging. However, I felt the white card wasn't crisp enough and found that they made very good stencils to put text onto my packaging. I did this in the spray booth and it was very effective. 

To see my WF5 work take a look on my USB stick. Thanks.

This is how my final product will look!

I am now off to CNC my work. I will try and get some screen shots from WF5 when I have a chance, I don't always get on too well with this software so all I can do is hope for the best and keep it simple.

This is how my product has been slimmed down to the bare minimum. I think that it still has a feel of a spoon and the rounded edge and design motif all add to the 'vintage tableware' feel of the product.

After returning to the drawing board for what feels like the hundreth time I feel like I am about there with my design! It is tiny. So compact and small that you could fit in a tiny coin purse and still have room for your bus change.

I've made a few changes since I last drew my design. The design no logner has a cap. The usb will be cased in at the top and that will be it. This is because after speaking to people such as my sister and her friends who are all students they said they always just lose the lid anyway. This factor is also true to me, so I decided not to make one. If this product went into mass product this would also make the product cheaper to make.

So far my design is 35mm long, 20mm wide and just under 10mm in height. The is the smallest I could possibly make it to encase my usb board.

Making my spoon usb just a simple spoon handle isn't going as well as I had hoped. I have decided to keep with the idea but change my approach. Now instead of it looking very similar to a spoon, the spoon will be more just a theme and I will spend my time focusing on how to make the product as small and as sleek as possible.

I am currently trying to work out how to fit my USB board into the spoon shapped casing. It currently seems that one of the best ways to do this would be to cut the spoon in half and have it as more of a spoon handle. This way I can still etch onto the product or make a design to go onto the top like tradtional spoons do.

My design is being based around spoons, as it is for a vintage tablewear company. however I have already encountered several problems that I hadn't thought enough about. A spoon is very slender towards the middle and therefore will not be big enough to contain my USB board without the product become large, clunky and visually unappealing. I am going to have to go back to the drawing board and rethink my design idea. I still want to stay with my original idea of the tablewear company, but I'm not too sure how this will currently work.

Materials & Processes

I'm currently researching materials and processes, today I'm looking into laser cutting. I've come across a jewelery brand called Stolen Thunder Boutique, they have various products which have been laser cut onto wood

The Vintage Tableware Company

I've decided that my usb stick will be a promotional tool for The Vintage Tableware Company - it's a little shop on Sharrowvale Road, where I live. You can see my design idea development when I scan in my drawings.

My design specification.

My design specification.

After looking at various blogs and products I have finally decided where to take this project:

I am designing a promotional USB for a vintage tableware company. The product and packaging is likely to be found at wedding fares, catering events, corporate events and in the shop. The product needs to be:

• contain and case a working usb
• be visually appealing
• be as small and lightweight as possible
• the packaging needs to protect the product whilst still being visually appealing

The USB is being marketed as a free promotional tool to help boost a company's clientele/knowledge of the company and would be part of a goody bag or suitable to be given away by itself. The product needs to generally appeal to a female audience as they are most likely to attend wedding fares and vintage tableware conferences. The product also needs to be as sleek and small as possible.

Other Design Blogs

Just a couple of my favourite design blogs and websites, I've been using the following for a while now and find they're great inspo for a variety of projects. Everything here from fashion to typefaces


Its Nice That
The Dieline
twentysixtypes
Booooooom
Rosey Kettle
Little-doodles
ArtPixie
eatsleepdraw
chairblog
blublu

Above is a copy of the brief we have been set. The product would be used as a promotional 'freebie' for companies and corporate events or for advertising etc. The two areas/company ideas that appealed to me most were:

• a new cloud based android or iPhone app
• the launch of a new web based music streaming site

These appealed to me as I felt they gave me freedom with the brief in hand. With the app based brief I could go into any direction I wanted as long as the company had a website/potential for a website. I also have a large interest in music, therefore doing a music streaming site means I could explore different genres and how they are advertised. The other two possible starting points for this brief were:

•  an information service for the 2012 Olympics
• The first film in a new science fantasy trilogy

Neither of these particular ideas appealed to me, however I still did basic research to see if there was an exciting way to approach either of them. The Olympics are coming to London next year and I considered using classic London landmarks as starting points, however the graphics and advertising scheme for the 2012 games is, in my opinion, verging on being visually offensive. The bad taste colour schemes, lazily designed logo and odd shaped mascots quiet simply, didn't do it for me. The science trilogy could of been made dark and interesting, with sleek graphics and a tidy product but yet again, there were other brief ideas that appealed to me more.