Lucy Milham Portfolio 01/08/22

PRODUCT DESIGN

PORTFOLIO LUCY MILHAM

LUCY MILHAM / PRODUCT DESIGNER Hi! I’m Lucy!

I’m an enthusiastic and innovative student currently on my university placement year.

I am a practical and hands-on designer who enjoys physical and CAD modelling to help develop and improve my designs. I am excellent at problem-solving and have developed proven teamwork skills demonstrated through a range of group projects and extracurricular activities. I enjoy meeting and working with new people so after graduating, I hope to continue to develop my skills whilst learning from colleagues, in the hope that I am able to take inspiration from all kinds of design.

I am currently looking for an industrial placement at a design company where I can develop existing skills and gain experience pursuing a career within design.

Skills

Photoshop

Illustrator

Indesign

PRODUCT DESIGN PORTFOLIO 2022

Solidworks

Keyshot

CONTENTS

01

02

03

Male Infertility Exhibition

Hairdryer Designed for Elegance

Activity Workstation for Matter

PRODUCT DESIGN PORTFOLIO 2022

The Unspoken Shame:

01

The Effect of Male Infertility on Mental Health

This exhibition was inspired by the question: How might we encourage conversations about male infertility?

The broad question provided dozens of avenues but focused on, not designing to solve the problem, but designing to help educate the public on the topic in the hope that if more people were aware of the issues, it would become less of a stigma.

The exhibition exists of three similar contemporary concrete chairs, spray painted with the emotions of the infertile and placed underneath a canopy of society’s opinions.

Infertility currently affects approximately 1 in 7 couples and this statistic will only continue to rise as

“Total fertility rate worldwide has dropped by nearly 1% per year from 1860 to 2018”.

Whilst women have been receiving fertility treatments for decades, it is only now becoming known just how much male infertility has to do with the struggles of conceiving - A journal from The National Library of Medicine estimated that the male is “...solely responsible for 20-

30% of infertility cases and contribute to 50% of cases overall.”

Material, colour and finish were important considerations in this project - concrete was used as it symbolises the permanence of this crisis and the discomfort of the topic, whilst orange was used to promote self-confidence and conversation.

Ideation...

From a broad topic and a broad reframed brief, initial ideas focused on provocative and innovative furniture and exhibition pieces.

The concept required detailed experimentation into how the design may be adapted for the outside, but eventually confirmed on a selection of bold, blocky, and simplistic chairs, similar in design but with slight differences.

I n t o

The sperm form was used as a theme for the final concept and was designed intentionally to be easily recognisable and cause discomfort - aiming to encourage the public to interact and educate themselves on the topic.

One of the three chairs was modelled up at 1:1 scale to test the dimensions and functionality of the product.

Modelling...

The words painted onto the chairs were chosen to portray the real, raw emotions of infertile men, so they were mainly taken from primary research and secondary selfreports.

Inspiration though Research

The primary research was conducted in questionnaire form and asked participants to roleplay as if they were infertile and answer the questions to the best of their understanding. Due to the sensitivity of the topic and restrictions, the questionnaires could not be send out to the correct demographic, therefore, there may be inconsistancies between the primary and secondary research.

Focusing on exhibitions, I explored how other designers are using their art to present controversial artwork and furniture. Exploring the Tate Britain and surrounding museums, I combined exhibitions witnessed first hand with exhibitions found on the internet.

Some designers choose less controversial topics, but ones which are likely to spark debate through discomfort, such as ‘My Bed’ by Tracy Emin (1998) which used the intimate object of a bed to address taboos on popular topics such as depression, failure, female imperfection, and bodily fluids’. The exhibition was infamous as it made people confront their own issues.

The font style and colours were chosen with the theme of

MESSY PAINT = MESSY THOUGHTS , further enforcing the belief

that the words are raw and rushed and emotional.

Orange and grey were chosen to compliment the concrete texture as they are contrasting, allowing the words to be easily legible.

Orange was chosen as the main colour as it promotes self-confidence, self-assurance and open conversation, which are all aims of what I hoped to achieve through this exhibition.

Full Exhibition

As part of the exhibition, the public are encouraged to sit back in the chairs and look up at the canopy.

When sitting, the user can imagine they are an infertile man, and the words painted onto their chairs are their internal emotions visualised.

The canopy shows the words of society and the opinions of the public which can be negative and overwhelming. When sitting, the canopy sits directly in the user’s viewpoint, making the opinions and articles unavoidable to look at and make judgement on.

a

dr

Minimal

ro yer P ject

02

ir

D e s L i a g n n g u a g e

H

C

urv

ed

Repetitive

Monotone

I ni ti al Id ea s

Exploded View

Electric Motor

Right Side Barrel Casing

Inner Vent

Insultating Mica Boards

Designing the hairdryer to be as realistic as possible, the shell casing is made from easily mass-produced matte plastic - either Polycarbonate (PC), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) or Polypropylene.

The casing would be created through injection moulding; filling the molten plastic into a stainless steel die, cooling, removing all parts and then assembling together, fitting the inner mechanism inside and fastening with screws.

Test Models and Prototypes made in the workshop

Fan

Outer Vent Silicon

Coiled Metal Wiring - Nickel or Chromium Alloy?

Screws Switches

Heat Shield Front Grill

Bill of Materials

Left Side Handle Casing

Nozzle Cable Protector

Cable

Final Concept Following design restrictions for this project, this hair-dryer was designed to fit within the trends of ‘elegant, sophisticated and refined’.

After modelling shape and form and experimenting with colour palettes and varied materials, I chose a monotone beige plastic casing for the main body as it allowed the product to be easy mass produced whilst maintaining an exterior that appeared elegant, feminine and expensive.

Small details were added on later such as the matte black nozzle for quicker drying, the three-step buttons to control temperature and speed, and the rubber component to protect the surface from scratches, located on the side of the body where the company name would be printed.

The final concept was modelled using yellow foam, grey foam and 3D printing PLA filiament.

MATTER’s Activity Workstation

03

X

The Brief How might we improve the experience for the increasing number of people with hybrid working patterns?” - 5 weeks Hybrid working - ‘a type of flexible working where an employee splits their time between the workplace and working remotely’.

Due to COVID-19, the percentage of employees working from home rose from 27% in 2019 to 37% in 2020. For most employees, this meant adapting to online meetings and communicating via video calls. For single mothers, however, this meant closed daycares and a lack of babysitters, forcing them to balance working from home with occupying their children. To portraying this demographic, the product was designed for the typical 30 year old mother with a child in preschool. The main insights found were: • Usual work breaks got filled with child care responsibilities, causing stress • Child is left alone for long hours of the day - agitated, restlessness • Mother and child rarely interact creating a lack of communication

X

Ideation

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s e h s i n i F d n Details a

Pine

Foam

Brass Hinge Silicon

Nylon

The product, designed in Solidworks and rendered in Keyshot uses a main material of sanded pine wood, using green (hex #d7e8c9) detailing for the small components.

WaterBased Inks

X

Alarm clock phone holders

QUICK SKETCHES DAB Radios

THANKYOU

CONTACT ME 07444 701459 lucyeviem@gmail.com @lucymilham.design http://lucymilham.myporfolio.com/ work