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That...is my head.09 December 2005: Well, after four years of design education I though I'd better start pushing my wares in as many places as possible, so here it is: my very own design web page, with samples of projects I've completed for both professional and academic requirements. Suffice it to say that balancing school, family, and work during this period has not been easy, but we've all got problems. I'm happy that none of that competing triumvirate have booted me off of the island yet, though my wife used to intimate that if I didn't get a real job sometime soon she would create a little space between herself, my kids, and me. Happily, that eventuality did not come to pass as I did get a real job in Industrial Design, but for the time being on the business-side as I manage business development for a superlative product development in New Hampshire. I'm still providing freelance ID and illustration work on the side, and there are a half-dozen children's projects I'm messing around with currently and will probably look to develop at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Design Resources That I Visit Daily:

So this will be haphazardly arranged for a while I'm sure, but I hope to get enough stuff up that it will not look like I've wasted four years and tens of thousands of dollars (plus interest) on the wrong career choice.

Kangareemie Car Seat Insert Concept

Here's a little something that I did to fulfill a graduate studio requirement involving the My son...in the Kangareemie.improvement of confined spaces for young child (originally envisioned as high rise apartments in urban environments, etc.). Sometime before that studio my wife gave birth to our son Elijah, who entered the world about six weeks early and weighed in at a hefty four pounds, eleven ounces. Anyway, getting him home (and subsequently around town) in a car seat that was not designed for premature infants was a little stressful, so when the aforementioned studio project presented itself, persuing solutions to the confined space that is a car seat seemed like a no-brainer. I initially came up with four directions: two involved aftermarket fabric and foam inserts that would fit any standard five-point car seat, a third involved an aftermarket car seat cover that incorporated inflatable and independently adjustable bladders, and the fourth focussed on a fully adjustable car seat that used mechanical components underneath the seat cover to customize fit. That thumbnail over there is a link to a single page .JPG "detailing" the development, though it's confined to a single page, of course. Someone I spoke with a while ago thought something like this would even be nice and useful in those 3-wheeled baby joggers, and I honestly hadn't even though about that. Enjoy.

Kid Kamera Digital Toddler Camera Concept

This was a project that started off as a painful exercise in ideating in Alias Studio Tools then grew to fulfill a graduate studio project requirement: design a concept that filled some previously unsatisfied consumer need. The memory of my son dropping one of my brother's cameras over the holidays was still on my mind at the time, and it dawned on me that for something that so many kids loved to do, there really wasn't a camera on the market rugged enough to withstand the attentions of a toddler. Throw in both of my kids' fascination with watching themselves perform on our camcorder's rotated LCD screen, and a concept was born. He will take your picture!As conceived, this rugged camera would be virtually impervious to shock or to the elements, it would have LCD screens to view the action (or playback) on both front and back, and the camera lens and LCD screens sit behind protective acrylic lenses that can be removed for cleaning or replaced by a parent. The picture-taking controls are very simple and allow the child to either take still images or record footage with audio (the button on the left grip is for video, the button on the right grip is for still pictures), and the right grip pivots 10 degrees to zoom in or out. For playback, the child can advance forward or backward through footage after pushing the play button, and the user can adjust the volume and delete unwanted content by depressing the trash-can like button for a preset length of time. The camera recharges on a base that transmits footage to a variety of electronic devices (computer, monitor, VCR, television, etc.) via Blue Tooth, USB, coax, or RCA cable, and a remote control that stores in the base allows the user to control the playback from across the room. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, and I really would love to see what my three year old could and would take pictures or footage of.

Pediamaze Pediatric Examination Room Wall Panel Concept

Enter Lady Ball!Conflict begets art, right? My wife and I normally take our kids to the pediatrician together, but on one occasion several years ago I went alone with my monkeys and I was not prepared to keep them entertained. Additionally, we were waiting to see their doctor in a triage room that was not really toddler-proofed, and full of sharp instruments and pricey electonics to boot.Spin the wheel, baby! The experience got me thinking about ways to bring some of the novelty and educational possibilities of well-stocked waiting rooms into typically more confined examination rooms. In the course of looking at the abundance of activity tables and the like on the market—things that seemed not very interesting to my kids after the first three minutes or so—I thought that a pardigm shift was in order: why not actually reward chldren for interacting with such a station in a directed, purposeful way? The reward in the Pediamaze would come in the form of thematic rubber balls that are dispensed by office staff to children upon their entrance into the examination room. Or, better yet, the nurse might insert the ball into the maze initially, and the only way for the child to get it out is to navigate it through the maze (or have their parents assist them). There are some ease-of-cleaning issues that probably need to be worked out, but I thought it an intriguing idea worth perhaps pursuing someday...

 
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