Post Legges and Wye Valley Visit & Q+A - Ben

Hi Ben - could you pop up some initial thinking post client visits etc here.. Some folks have also popped-up some useful pics as well - perfect for blogs etc.. Trying to get all to treat their blogs as a 'journal' with a x-section of refs etc - sent a similar post to others too just prompting them to put up initial thinking/refs etc too.

Ta,

Andy

Task 3 - Shoe Box

For my shoe box design i went for the theme of children's school shoe's.
Kids go through several pairs of school shoes through their early years so i thought it would be an appropriate area to target and make good use of the boxes.

My design basically has a lid that slides into slots that hold it in place. When the shoes have been transported the lid can be taken off and made good use of. The underside has cut markers that guide you in cutting it up and placing them on the inside to form little sections that can be used for storing their school equipment.
I have also made it longer than the average shoe box to allow it to store the shoes for before and after school, at least this will keep them tidy instead of them being left around the room.

My design makes mainly use of slots and is made from folded cardboard and the only use of other colour is in my little turtle logo which will be done with vegetable inks. I think it would be quite a useful design and help school kids try and stay a little bit more organized.

Task 2

I looked into videos that focused on Sustainable Packaging and i came across this videos that talks about how McDonald's has been working on its packaging designs to make that better for the environment and reduce the amount of waste.

1, Design to satisfy real needs as opposed to transient, fashionable or market-driven needs.

Their products may have been originally made more for the market to purely sell, they have now had several redesigns to make them use less packaging and use more environmentally friendly materials such as the corn for the salad packages.

2, Design to minimize the ecological footprint of the product/material/service product, i.e. reduce resource consumption, including energy and water.

They are using less materials for their packaging but keeping them just as efficient at their job, they are reusing materials for their plastic cups and using corn for their salad packaging which is compostable which then reduces waste further.

3, Design to enable the separation of components of the product/material or service product at the end of life in order to encourage recycling or reuse of materials and/or components.

Several of the packages mentioned in the video are recyclable, they are using less plastics that are difficult to recycle and some of their packages are made from recycled goods.

4, Design to exclude the use of substances toxic or hazardous to human and other forms of life at all stages of the product/material/service product's life cycle.

The main example I know they do this is is how they now use "unbleached fibers" for the packaging to reduce impact on the environment and they do not use any unnecessary chemicals to up the packaging appearance.

5, Design to exclude innovation lethargy by re-examining original assumptions behind existing concepts and products/materials/service products.

Instead of just sticking with their old designs they redesigned some of their packaging to contain less materials and still be just as functional, such as their fries cartons.

6, Design to create more sustainable products/materials/service products for a more sustainable future.

The products shown in the video show how McDonald's is making an effort to make their business less wasteful, use better materials and make their packaging more recyclable. They do still use a large amount of materials everyday but they are taking a step into the right direction for a more sustainable future.

Task 1

Chosen Topic to expand upon – Rising Ocean Temperatures and Consequential storms

I decided to look into this as it was a topic that I have had an interest in it previously. Storms have gotten worse over the years and I thought this to be a good section to take from the video to look into further.

Research over the past several years, research has gone into looking at the relationship between the rising temperatures of the ocean and how they are affecting/causing hurricanes. It was found that during the last 35 years the amount of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled even though the total amount of hurricanes have in fact decreased. The amount of hurricanes that occur could just be a natural occurrence and may not be as affected by outside factors but the fact that the dangerous high category hurricanes have doubled in occurrence asks questions about why this is.

An increase of water temperature has been recorded over these years and is believed to have a direct affect on the storms that occur and pass over warmer waters. Even though the change in temperature is only within a few degree's researchers believe that even that is capable of making drastic changes to the environment around it could be the catalyst that causes hurricanes to become so much more devastating.

Some researchers agree with this, that the increase in ocean temperatures have affected the intensity of storms and this is why there have been significantly more stronger storms than 20 years ago. As stated by a researcher who supports this theory, the warmer temperatures mean that there will be more water vapour in the air and when this is mixed with certain wind patterns it causes hurricanes to become much stronger and destructive. This means that if true even a tiny increase in the ocean temperature could make hurricanes far more dangerous and in turn cause an unbelievable amount of damage.

There are other researchers they believe that there is no direct link between the oceans temperature and hurricane intensity and that it nothing more that climate variability. I think that this is a bit ignorant and that even though there have been possible links between the subject it feels like some people are choosing to ignore them and not consider the possibility that there is a link.

Global warming has been linked to the increase in sea temperatures by the greenhouse gases preventing more solar rays from escaping and therefore warming the earth. If true, then this means with the greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere it will not only just make the earth warmer but it will also make the oceans temperature rise, even if it is at a slow rate.

If true, all of these factors all affect each other directly. Global Warming is warming the earth and its oceans, the sea temperatures rise, the hurricanes pass over the warmer waters and pick up more moisture and speed and become higher category hurricanes.

I think that there are facts within what researchers are saying and that the evidence to back up the relationship between ocean temperature and storm intensity does give reason to believe that if ocean temperatures continue to rise then we may see much larger affects. This should be watched carefully and acts to prevent the causes of ocean temperature should be continued otherwise in several years we may end up seeing some powerful storms that could leave city's/countries devastated.