uncommon goods

Uncommon Goods is an online and catalog retailer based in Brooklyn, New York, New York, who specialize in quirky, unique production gifts targeted at different age groups. They collaborate regularly with artists and designers to bring new and odd ideas to life and to the market. In Fall of 2022, Uncommon Goods collaborated with the University of Illinois Chicago School of Architecture, Design, and Arts for the Material and Methods class. This collaboration’s goal was to have the students of this class design a product that could be further developed into a full fledged product to be sold on Uncommon Good’s website.

The objective was to design a product that touched on memory. This could be a product that helped consumers make memories, keep memories, etc. Very rough concepts were drawn up to help develop ideas, even if the ideas were products that were more likely to already exist. From there, ideas were narrowed down and further developed to try to make them more unique. Further market research was done in the weeks after the initial sketches to ensure that the developing ideas didn’t exist in any form from other vendors or artists. This helped narrow ideas down further and left me with a few concepts.

concept 1 - fidget pendant

Concept 1 was a fidget pendant meant to help those with anxiety. The flipping pendant could be fidgeted with, with either side having space for photographic memories, allowing for those with anxiety to store positive memories to look at when having an anxious episode in an effort to calm them down.

concept 2 - memorable molecules

Concept 2 was a molecule building photograph holder. The holder was meant to be modeled into molecules that invoke a sense of positivity, the above concept modeling serotonin. As an addition, the pictures stored would be positive memories.

concept 3 - Memo-tree

Concept 3, dubbed the “Memo-tree” (memory + tree), was a tree shaped structure that came with bare branches and a stack of bare leaves. Each leaf could have a memory attached to it, whether a photo, note, etc, and then be attached to the tree. The concept was meant to create an ornate yet playful decoration piece that would store someone’s most prized memories.

concept 4 - warm feeling

Concept 4 was another take on the fidget pendant, but a bit more experimental. The idea was to have a pendant that had a thermochromic paint layer over an image of one’s memories. While fidgeting with the pendant, the heat from the user’s hands would cause the thermochromic paint to go from opaque to transparent, revealing the positive memory located inside the pendant. This was the concept that was further developed and presented to Uncommon Goods.

Warm Feeling

Warm feeling was further developed to be a more complete looking pendant. The aim of the design wasn’t to be overly detailed, but instead as simple as possible to allow Uncommon Goods to see it as a blank canvas that could be developed into a far more beautiful jewelry piece. Rough models of the pendant were 3D printed from iron infused PLA plastic, and the thermochromic paint concept was simulated with a piece of clear plastic painted over with black ink.

After the presentation of all projects to Uncommon Goods, the company made the decision to select my project to be further developed with them outside of school. This project continued its development for another year up to November of 2023, when it was sadly scrapped. While quite unique and just what Uncommon Goods was looking for, it was perhaps a bit ambitious. Production of different prototypes with Uncommon Good’s partner company got very close to producing a thermochromic paint that went fully transparent with body heat, but ultimately failed to achieve the desired goal for a large enough piece of glass for the pendant. It worked at a very small scale, but not a large enough one. Despite the outcome, I am very grateful for the opportunity I had to work with a company to get my design produced, and it was an experience I will not forget.

brand design - xbox

While a rather small project, this brand redesign project tested my skills in market research and iterating. The objective was to study the brand language of an existing brand and create a product that the company does not currently make, but is related to their current products, in the design language of that brand. I chose Microsoft’s gaming brand Xbox. The design language of Xbox is very simple and minimalistic, so while I needed to approach my new product the same way, I also needed it to stand on its own. I decided to consider gamers who spend long periods of time in their rooms during lenghty sessions of gaming, in which their environments could (unfortunately) become quite musty and sweaty. As a result, I chose to design an Xbox branded dehumidifier.

my design

My design for an Xbox branded dehumidifier took great inspiration from the previous generation console, the Xbox One. I wished to incorporate some aspects of Xbox’s design language from earlier years to somewhat illustrate the console generations that impacted their current design language. In an effort to also differentiate the dehumidifier from an Xbox One or Xbox Series S, I made the dehumidifier a hexagon rather than a rectangle, with both the top rear corner and bottom front corner being turned into slanted faces instead. The vents on the sides of the dehumidifier use the swooped green inset within the vents that was inspired by the to of the Xbox Series X. The power connector is located at the rear, with all the control and power buttons located at the front of the machine. The bottom half of the dehumidifier houses the water catch tray that can be ejected with the “X” shaped button at the front of the dehumidifier. The box as a whole has a “two-toned” material setup, with the top corrugated half being a glossy plastic, and the bottom half being a matte plastic, sharing a similar aesthetic to the Xbox One and paying homage as well to the Xbox 360. A typical Xbox logo power button is found at the top front of the dehumidifier. Overall, the machine maintains a simple design, yet with the very soft fillets and smooth flat edges, it fits right into the lineup of Xbox branded products.