March - June 2020
Maze, rendered in Blender.
The Brief
Design an item to be gifted to prospective international students that can be made locally and is representative of QUT Creative Industries Faculty and of Brisbane for less than $2 per piece.
The Process
Research involved meetings with the QUT Creative Industries Faculty International and Engagement Team regarding their needs around the gift such as manufacturability, bulk transportability, cost and symbolism, as well as what has and has not worked in the past. Online market research was also conducted to analyse the most common existing corporate gifts. Personas and a journey map were created and a product context analysis was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the users and context of the project.
Initial designs of Maze followed the typical form with the clear plastic cover trapping the ball within. As sustainability is important to both me and QUT I wanted to avoid the use of plastic so changed the design of Maze to be made from bamboo panels with the pathway for the ball duplicated on the top piece, more narrow than the path beneath. This meant that the ball would be trapped in the middle layer but would still be visible, avoiding the need for a clear plastic cover.
Initial model of Maze with a plastic cover, drawing on the layout of QUT Gardens Point campus.
Later model of Maze using the open top form and drawing on the layout of Brisbane.
The Design
Maze is a laser cut bamboo maze using the main roads in a section of Brisbane as the pathway for a stainless steel ball. The endpoints of the maze are the Kelvin Grove and Gardens Point campuses of QUT, highlighting how close the campuses are to each other - a significant attraction to international students. The back of Maze has important phone numbers for prospective students engraved into it and a statement highlighting that the product was designed by a QUT Creative Industries student and manufactured in the QUT workshop for Creative Industries students. The use of bamboo is both attractive and environmentally friendly, and is easy to work with in the QUT workshop.
Exploded view, rendered in Blender.