Materials: Metals

Materials: Metals

• Ferrous: Contains iron
• Nonferrous: doesn't contain iron or steel
• Alloy: Combination of two or more different metal elements
• Iron: Strong, magnetic, silver-gray metal, chemical element 26
• Steel: Hard, strong, gray or blueish-gray alloy of carbon and iron
• Aluminum Alloys: alloy where aluminum is the dominant metal
• Magnesium Alloy: mixture of magnesium's and other metals, it is also the lightest structural metal
• Titanium Alloy: Mixture of titanium that is very strong in extreme conditions and is corrosion resistant 
• Zinc Alloy: Brittle at room temperature but can be malleable with heat
• Copper Alloy: High resistance to corrosion
• Nickle Alloy: Mixture of metals mainly containing nickle
• Precious Metals: Gold, Silver, Platinum 

Megafactories

I was surprised when I found out IKEA had 5 different manufacturing plants each focusing on a specific type of material. I was also surprised by the amount of material they were using and how much stuff they were producing. IKEA's mission to create cheap yet designer furniture is a good idea and I think they are doing a good job of staying with in their own guidelines. The amount of stuff they produce though makes me wonder how much waste is being created by this furniture and how is it impacting the environment.

Waste=Food

As an industrial designer taking into consideration how things are going to be thrown away is becoming more and more important due to the high number of toxic chemicals we use today. With the green movement happening and the realization of our toxic habits we need to start designing so that when our products are done doing what we designed them to do, they can go back into nature safely. In the film Waste = Food they talked about how products need to be a nutrient into our ecosystem. I think as an industrial designer designing systems that support our ecosystem is very important especially since now we live in a consumer world where products are mass produced and thrown away to waste.

            Another important thing that the film mentioned was designing things to be disassembled. Designing things to be disassembled is important because it cuts down on disassembly cost and makes the product more easily able to be recycled. As an industrial designer designing things that can be easily manufactured while saving the company money is always a bonus. From a manufacturing point of view designing where waste = food can also save money or even be profitable. A lot of manufacturing companies are reusing and selling scraps of their product to be more efficient.

            Lastly as an industrial designer, designing for children is something to keep in mind. In the Waste=Food film Tim O’Brien, CEO of the Ford manufacturing plant said that he wouldn’t want his kids to play around the factory, but after making it more green and ecosystem supporting that he felt that it was safer and he would allow for them to play around the plant. I think that taking this concept of ecofriendly and safety for children is important because if you wouldn’t want you kids to play around it, why should you be around it. Designing for the health and safety of our children is also important because what we teach them they will hand down to their kids and the preservation of our natural habitat will last much longer if we live with it not using it. Which also brings up the fact that we shouldn’t design to make this less bad, we should design things that help the environment. We as designers should be creating systems that nature needs, not things that are less bad for it.

Design Strategies

• Making textiles 100% biodegradable
• creating new nontoxic dies
• Toxin Free T-shirts
• Using old products and recycling them to make new products
• (plastic book with ink that washes off with heat)
• Nike
• Reuse Shoe Program
• using the rubber soles for children's playgrounds or track top surfaces
• reusing the cloth to make new shoes
• "Nike Considered"
• Made with one piece of leather
• biodegradable rubber
• no adhesives
• Herman-Miller
• Designing a more green factory plant
• Designing products with little to no toxic products and to be broken down easily

CBS Wasteland

The 60 minute Wasteland video was very shocking to see. In a world today where technology is becoming obsolete in just a few months, it was an eye opener to see what happens to the old technologies that we dispose of. I also found it very surprising how many toxic chemicals go into these technologies that we use everyday and how a lot of people just throw it away. What concerns me though is that people who try to do the right think by recycling are actually getting tricked into polluting other countries and putting other peoples lives at risk.

3 sustainable strategies

1. Make products easily updatable, instead of throwing away an entire electronic make parts of that electronic replaceable for future generations and keep waste down
2. Make products that can interchange meaning that one part of one product could be used on another product thus recycling broken electronics into new electronics
3. Create green products, made completely out of organic material to be non toxic to the earth.

Design Thinking Documentary

The Design thinking documentary was very interesting to watch. Learning that designing has changed how people go about problems now. The Design Thinking documentary encourages people to go out and fail and fail again by creating things and trying prototypes and learning from those prototypes. One quote from the movie was, "if you're only thinking then you're not doing." and I think that that is very important in the industrial design field because we as designers can think and sketch ideas all we want, but if we aren't doing anything to test that idea then we aren't making the product the best that it could be. I was also surprised that design thinking isn't just used in the design world, other industries are taking the concept to become better a learn more about what they're doing by taking the design thinking concept and utilizing it to their advantage.

Hallmark

WHO IS / WHAT IS:_________

Hallmark is a greeting card manufacturing company

PRODUCT(S) & SERVICES  WHAT DO THEY DO / WHAT DO THEY MAKE?

Hallmark creates cards for all sorts of occasions.

MARKET (S) FOR WHOM DO THEY MAKE IT?

Hallmark creates cards for consumers to use and give as gifts to people.

MATERIALS:  Flitter(glitter), Flock - a powdered wool, Foil, corrugated paper, film paper, recycled paper, Nylon powder suspended in ink heated then cool to dry

FORMING TECHNOLOGIES: Emboss

CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES: Laser cut, die cut

JOINING TECHNOLOGIES: adhesive

FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES: Print ink, foil press, flitter

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / EPIPHANIES/ AHA MOMENTS? 

I thought hallmark was going to be a boring tour but it turned out pretty interesting. I was impressed at how envelopes are made and how fast they are created to. Creating these cards also used a lot of advanced technologies that I didn't think were used on cards such as the flock machine that added flock to the cards.

Berry Plastics

WHO IS / WHAT IS:_________

Berry Plastics is a large plastic manufacturing company with a subdivision in Lawrence, Kansas. 

PRODUCT(S) & SERVICES  WHAT DO THEY DO / WHAT DO THEY MAKE?

Berry Plastics creates injection molded and thermo molded food containers and drink cups. They also print they labels that go on to the cups and containers.

MARKET (S) FOR WHOM DO THEY MAKE IT? 

Berry plastic makes their products for companies such as Oxiclean, and McDonalds. 

MATERIALS:  Polypropylene - a synthetic resin that is a polymer of propylene, used especially for ropes, fabrics, and molded objects

FORMING TECHNOLOGIES: Injection molded - plastic resin is melted down and pushed into a mold, the mold is cooled and then released and packaged, Thermo molding - plastic resin is formed into a thin sheet, then the plastic sheet is placed into a mold and heated, it is then cooled and cut out of the sheet and prepared for shipping.

CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES: N/A

JOINING TECHNOLOGIES: N/A

FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES: Berry plastics can print and create labels and form them into the container so their is no edge and the label becomes part of the container itself. 

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / EPIPHANIES/ AHA MOMENTS? 

I thought it was incredible how many cups they were producing that that facility. I was a little concerned about the working conditions as there seemed to be a haze on the factory floor. I was also impressed at how fast they can create a cup while also they only had a small margin for error. 

El Dorado Inc

WHO IS / WHAT IS:_________

El Dorado is a young architecture firm competing with some of the best architecture firms around

PRODUCT(S) & SERVICES  WHAT DO THEY DO / WHAT DO THEY MAKE?

Design/restore houses and buildings. They also have design modular furniture for some of their spaces

MARKET (S) FOR WHOM DO THEY MAKE IT? 

El Dorado designs buildings for residential clients as well as commercial clients

MATERIALS:  El Dorado has a small wear house where they build studies and sections of what they are working on to see how it reacts in real life. They mainly use a lot of tube steel, but will also use other materials they are working with their projects

FORMING TECHNOLOGIES: N/A

CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES: Drill Press - used to create straight consistent holes in material, saw - used to cut materials, heat wire - heated wire used to cut foam.

JOINING TECHNOLOGIES: welding - creates a bond between to metals 

FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES: N/A

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / EPIPHANIES/ AHA MOMENTS? 

I thought that it was very interesting hearing about taking the leap from working for a business to going to work for yourself. 

Target Presentation: Luggage

How its Made Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyhE9vt8izA

Ikea Presentation: Wall Decor

How its made Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u03S1Nmslw4

Huhtamaki

WHO IS / WHAT IS:Huhtamaki is a leading manufacture of consumer and specialty packaging.

PRODUCT(S) & SERVICES  WHAT DO THEY DO / WHAT DO THEY MAKE?

Huhtamaki creates specialty food packaging for customers. 

MARKET (S) FOR WHOM DO THEY MAKE IT? Huhtamaki creates products for Ben and Jerry's, Unilever, Quiznos, Starbucks, Blue Bunny, Dean Foods, McDonald's, Sam's Club, Malt-O-Meal, Sysco, Safeway, Publix, Turkey Hill, and many more companies

MATERIALS:  Paper board - thin cardboard, Commodity plastic resins - high volume output use of plastics (such as shrink wrap, beverage containers and trash liners)[not great for environment], Molded Fiber - scraps of fiberboard and newspaper molded into forms (usually drink trays), Metals and engineered plastics- creating equipment.

FORMING TECHNOLOGIES: Automated machines that form the shape of the cup by wrapping it around a form and heating part of the cup that overlays itself to create a seal and keep the cup or food container together

CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES: Die Cutting

JOINING TECHNOLOGIES: I believe they heated the plastic coating on the outside of their packaging until it melted and cooled to form a bond.

FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES: Ink print - printing labels onto sheets of paperboard.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / EPIPHANIES/ AHA MOMENTS?

I thought it was impressive what their facility could do. The amount of cups that they were manufacturing seemed like they were creating much more than the world could consume.

Lawrence Paper Company

WHO IS / WHAT IS: 

Lawrence Paper Company is a custom corrugated box and display manufacturing company.

PRODUCT(S) & SERVICES  WHAT DO THEY DO / WHAT DO THEY MAKE?

They create custom boxes and displays for companies who need to ship things across countries or even around the globe. Companies who need easy set up temporary displays can also have them manufactured at Lawrence Paper Company. 

MARKET (S) FOR WHOM DO THEY MAKE IT?

Lawrence Paper Company has a broad customer base, they pretty much manufacture for anyone who needs industrial or retail packaging.

MATERIALS:  Trees - to create paper for cardboard, chemicals - bleaching paper, ink - for printing graphics, corn based adhesive. 

FORMING TECHNOLOGIES: Corrugator - layers sheets of paper together to create walls and adds a corrugated sheet down the middle.  

CUTTING TECHNOLOGIES: Die cutter - uses a die (or cutting template) to cut or make perforations out of the corrugated card board

JOINING TECHNOLOGIES: Corn based adhesive - adhesive that will break down and not pollute the earth because of its natural base. 

FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES: On-site ink kitchen with 5 different colors for printing, They can also print up to 82"x65" graphics

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS / EPIPHANIES/ AHA MOMENTS? 

My overall impressions after visiting the LPC was a lot more than I expected. Learning how much goes into actually designing for packaging was very interesting and I never thought too much about. One thing that really gave me an 'aha moment' was when they said that their designs are what people see on the shelf and make people want to buy it and it is really true.