Portfolio April 2024

George Hill Portfolio 2024

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hello@georgehilldesign.com

@georgehilldesign

georgehilldesign.com

linkedin.com/in/georgehilldesign

About me

I am a recent graduate in product design, looking to further develop my skills and enter the field of information design. After three years of study, I am looking for opportunity that allows me to make a real contribution to live projects and challenges me to work as part of an industry-leading team.

As a designer my process is user-centred. I’m passionate about making products accessible, inclusive and sustainable. Interactions with products, services and systems are what users care about, and that is where I see the value of the designer. Every project starts with an understanding of the user, the problems they face and the weaknesses of existing solutions before I put pen to paper.

Education

BA (Hons) Product Design

Nottingham Trent University 2019-2023

CertHE Industrial Design & Technology Brunel University London 2016-2017

A-level Product Design, Sociology, Business Lincoln Castle Academy 2009-2016

Experience

Branding & Print, NTU DI, Nov 2022 - May 2023

During my final year at NTU I was a member of the Expo Committee, which organised the degree show for all undergraduate product design courses. As a member of the branding and print team, I collaborated with the rest of the team to develop and implement the brand for the 2023 show.

Structural Designer, StormDFX, Jun 2021- Jul 2022

During my placement year, I worked as a structural designer at StormDFX, designers and manufacturers of retail displays. I was responsible for developing concepts into technical drawings.

Skills

• Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop

• Solidworks

• Keyshot

• ArtiosCAD

01 Future Bus

Stop

2023 Component of final year major project

Improving the experience of using public transport, and leveraging its physical footprint to attract new users.

40% of households in Nottingham don’t have access to a car, but cars dominate our streets.

This is despite increasing awareness of the environmental and social damage caused by society’s dependence on cars.

How can we reduce car use in cities like Nottingham?

Improving perceptions

To get people ‘through the door ’

Let people see it as an attractive option

Why are people not using it? What do they think about it? What are the percieved challenges?

How?

Improving experience s

Keeping people using these modes by providing a better experience than the car

What are the positives? What are the challenges? What are people’s priorities?

Alan Murray-Rust

Perceptions

From going through a user’s journey, I identified a range of factors that affected the desirability of a journey made by public transport.

These were then categorised by whether they affected the perception of public transport, the experience of using it, or both.

From these factors, I determined that there were some that would be best suited to a product-design based intervention.

The factors around comfort of stops, safety, information, and look/feel could all be addressed through focusing on the physical footprint of the network - bus and tram stops. This would cover improving both the user experience and the non-users’ perception of the network.

Waiting spaces

From this exploration, combined with secondary research that identified user’s expectations, I could develop a reframed brief and specification of requirements to define my problem-solving.

How might we...

use street furniture to improve perceptions and experiences of using public transport?

What are the pain points experienced by existing users of public transport?

What negatively or positively affects perceptions of public transport for non-users?

...that can be addressed using street furniture.

User journey

Public transport has a wide range of users, who use the system for a variety of reasons. To identify where the opportunities for improvement are, I developed user personas and journeys. These helped to map the types of users, ranging from regular commuters to unfamiliar users who typically get around by car.

Fixed information

In order to better group the fixed and live information, I explored rotating the traditional bus stop flag into a landscape format. This would better accommodate the integration with the digital display for live information.

Starting with a clean slate, I considered what elements were necessary or useful to include on this panel. Most of this information was bypassed by habitual users, but was important reassurance to unfamiliar users.

Dynamic information

While the landscape format of the digital display was retained, again I considered how this touchpoint might better meet the needs of users. Increasing the size of the display itself would allow information to be larger and therefore more visible from a distance, as well as reconfiguring the way that departures were shown. I developed a ‘call out’ of the next departure to take advantage of the larger screen space.

Aesthetics

Whilst retaining the new positions of information, I refined the look and feel of the design.

A key consideration was providing a cohesive form between different elements, uniting them all in a common aesthetic in contrast with the existing stop. I also explored the finish options and how to implement network branding.

3D brand applications

The future bus stop is the physical presence of the brand. This is strengthened by using brand colours and the arrowmark, and presenting information using brand typography and colours.

Information presented to network standards, using brand colours, typography, and symbols

Logo applied to column, acting as a ‘beacon’ for wayfinding

Flag column in Robin Hood Teal, to provide visual distinction

RAL 220 20 20 Natural Indigo

Shelter structure in brand grey

000 25 00 Onyx Black

Shape of logo adapted into texture to provide visual contrast

Look + feel

High-quality materials and finishes give a positive impression to the passenger and potential user, as well as having a positive impact on the street scape.

Glass manifestation uses a pattern derived from the network logo, with a hollow version to give better through visibility on shelter ends.

A visual rhythm and common height to elements of the stop give a holistic and unified appearance,

Experience

All information is concentrated on the ‘flagpole’ element common to all stops. Information is brought down closer to the passenger – live dynamic information and fixed signage are combined with a common design language and location.

Amenities like benches and lean bars are mounted to the structural elements of the shelter to reduce clutter and prevent dirt traps.

All the elements, both 2D and 3D, could be adapted to suit a whole range of situations. To demonstrate this, a ‘design guide’ was complied to show how the information and signage should be presented, and how stops can be configured to respond to local needs.

‘Design a piece of lighting for the home that fits within the Made.com market demographic. You should target your lighting design around one of the key themes from the WGSN 10 Key Trends report.’

Research insights

Post-pandemic, more people are opting to work from home, at least a few days a week

The condition of the property market means that renters and buyers can only afford smaller homes

WGSN’s detailed trend reports traced the origin of the flexible lighting trend back to the same trend in interiors. The way we use our spaces has evolved to be more flexible and intensely used. Reacting to open-plan layouts, spaces are becoming ‘zoned’ for different functions using furniture, and potentially lighting

More activities are taking place at home, including work and hobbies

People are reconfiguring and ‘zoning’ their spaces to better suit the way they use their home

How can lighting participate in this trend?

To direct ideation, I wanted to reframe the original brief into something more focussed on the trend. Considering the insights from research, I mapped out how lighting could participate in the flexible trend in a meaningful way. In the end, this produced a new brief to guide my ideation.

How can we let people use light to transform their space and switch their mindset?

Aesthetic inspiration

As a trend-driven project, I chose another trend identified by WGSN to guide the aesthetic development of the product.

‘Raw edges’ defines the materials and form, as juxtaposed materials and geometry like wood and natural stone provide textures and contrast.

Raw edges

‘embrace the dramatic tactility of unpolished wood and stone for organic statement pieces’

Ideation

My ideation explored how light can be manipulated and changed in different ways. Of particular interest was the use of angle and direction, diffusion through different materials, and the use of adjustable shades.

While it was difficult to capture the motion and interaction ideating in 2D, this gave a level of freedom to explore ideas and evaluate later with sketch modelling.

Concept development

Evaluating the concepts from the ideation process, the concept of the light which can be tilted to transition from downlighting to uplighting had more potential to be a marketable product. The form and interaction were developed together, form reflecting how the lamp could rotate and exploring how to invite this interaction from the user.

Interaction

Since the concept was that the interaction with the physical product would serve as a signifier of the mental switch between moods/activities, it was important that this was fully resolved.

I used iterative cardboard prototyping, as well sketching, explore the relationship between different styles of dial and how that translated to the rotation of the light fitting.

In the end, the direct continuation of the halfcylinder of the lighting mount was the most effective at communicating the relation between the two.

Flexibility

While the design of the lamp allowed it to be infinitely adjustable, four ‘modes’ emerged that communicated the potential lighting settings that could be achieved.

The flexibility of the lighting direction provides contrast between downlighting to enable focus, and uplighting to give ambience.

Users can adapt the lighting in their space to suit the range of different activities happening within it, and let the change of lighting signify a switch of headspace.

Audio/Visual

2021 Second year project

Audio player that brings back the joy of self-expression into your environment

Trend insights

Embrace the friction and inconvenience

Does this allow them to overcome inconveniences of the format, because of the novelty?

Artists that lead cassette sales indicate a young audience, who wouldn’t have used the format at its peak.

What has attracted them to using these old formats?

This project was trend-inspired. The Future 100 report produced by Wunderman Thompson identified a trend of ‘nostalgic formats’ – ie the resurgence of obsolete media formats gaining popularity. I mapped the insights from this report to identify where opportunities could be for a new product to respond to this trend.

What has made it so big, and culturally accepted?

Difference in artist sales between different formats suggests different audiences prefer different formats

‘Vinyl Revival’ is an accepted phenomenon

...is it possible to appeal to all of them? if not, need to identify which retro format audience I’m designing for

Just designing another aesthetically pleasing cassette player?

Potentially being purchases purely as memorabilia.

How to innovate in this area?

Bring something new?

...but new listening devices for cassette are being developed, indicating there is demand to use them for listening.

Intentionality and deliberate listening

Ceremony and ritual involved with the ‘practice’ of music listening

‘Screen fatigue’ has lead to a desire for tangibility and tactility in interactions

...convenience, but with tactile satisfying interaction

Possible to blend both of them?

Does this counteract the desire for immediacy and convenience?

Directions

To further explore these directions from the brief, I produces a moodboard for each of them. This allowed me to visualise what was ‘missing’ from the contemporary streaming experience. I identified that there was the most potential for innovation by addressing the themes of ‘physical expression’ and ‘intentionality and ceremony’

Decorating our space

Saying something about ourselves, to ourselves

Saying something to others that enter our space

Humans enjoy physical objects

Physical expression

Purposeful listening

Removing distraction

Intentional listening

Manual effot

Give and take

Intentionality + ceremony

Sharing

Borrowing

Lending

Experience of exchanging and sharing things we enjoy

Enjoying things together

Bonding over shared media

Identity

Subcultures and belonging

Shared experiences

Personal expression

In the time of physical media, our library of music was on display, on our shelves, in our homes. Digital download and streaming have changed this – our music collections are trapped in our devices. Some have returned to physical media, while for most the benefits of digital download and streaming are too important.

How might we express our music libraries in the physical environment, without physical media?

Consider...

The way people express their music tastes through physical media

From the exploration of the trend, I identified multiple reasons for its rising popularity. One factor was that the physical media enabled a sense of self-expression in our own environments – it allows us to express our taste in the physical rather than digital world. From this I developed a brief to explore how this could be done. I felt it was important to consider how the other factors, such as intentionality and ritual of listening would interplay in the brief.

The permanence of online streaming libraries

How people listen to their music at home

User + environment

To direct my ideation, and create a target aesthetic, I developed a user persona. This outlined his age, the music he likes, how he listens to music, and why he might be a participant in the trend of nostalgic formats. The trend has a wide scope of users, which is observed from the variety of musical artists releasing on obsolete formats.

Creative professional with disposable income

Music lover – into electronic music

Favourite artists are Underworld, Röyksopp, and Kraftwerk.

Grew up with CDs, MP3s, and enjoys using his iPod for nostalgia.

Has digitised his library using a streaming service.

Mark, 34

The ideation process began from the two themes that developed from my research; ‘intention and ceremony’ and ‘physical expression’. Many of the ideas responding to these themes had overlap, and after evaluating selected two that responded to each theme to develop into fuller concepts.

Concept Review

Seen as for home... part of the

Portable or for home?

What else could be displayed?

More interaction through a screen, less novel approach

Potential

Different material choices

Different

These concepts developed from the ideation process. I selected two designs from two themes of concepts - two addressing the theme of selfexpression, and two addressing the theme of intention and ceremony. Feedback was gathered from my classmates and tutors, and I also added my own reflections on the four concepts.

How

for wall mounting?

Changing orientation of the slot would make a clearer reference to the tape player Clearer connection through the detail of the mechanism

Answers the ritual element of the brief

Unique approach and novelty

will the phone be detected?

Animated album art is becoming more used...

Doesn’t celebrate the ritual and the inconvenience

use environment Most similar to conventional smart speakers

Phone/streaming is the vessel for the music... Augmenting the interaction

ritual

Form development

From the concept review, I explored different interpretations of the rectangular form from the concept. The idea of having side firing speakers behind the display was retained, and the form evolved taking inspiration from the design language of premium audio products. As interaction would be through the tactility of physical buttons, their form and position was also finalised, but their functions were left open to further refinement.

Interaction development

How to communicate this extra layer of function?

Affordances? Signifiers?

functions are needed?

While interaction is through physical buttons, how the user’s music library is navigated needed to be refined. A simple, unobtrusive interface that focuses on the album art of the user’s library was developed, while the exact functions of the physical controls were finalised. Typography evokes the controls of traditional music hardware.

Visual is less important when browsing by artist? Showing albums featured on playlists?

Interaction + control

As the device uses a different interface and interaction compared to navigating a music library on a smartphone, I included a brief guide to the controls. While the navigational controls are relatively intuitive, this would help communicate the intended interaction with the device.

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