Project Overview
As a second-year university brief, I was tasked with designing for a real company based on a brief that they had devised. This project ran for 8 weeks, during which time I went from ideation and brainstorming, through the design and production stage, to the conclusion of the project where I had a functional app and physical badges.
My Contributions
This was a project brief which left plenty of room for creativity and different interpretations, which I saw from the work of my fellow students.
I decided to not only work on it as a 'product design' brief, but also to take on the opportunity to expand my practice in UX and UI by creating an app to go alongside my products.
I decided to not only work on it as a 'product design' brief, but also to take on the opportunity to expand my practice in UX and UI by creating an app to go alongside my products.
“What other products could Alpkit offer that are more sustainable, inclusive, accessible and promote the benefits of the outdoors to a new generation of consumers?”
Badge Development
Once I had selected this idea to pursue for the project, one of my first tasks was designing the badges. I started by analysing the existing design language within the Alpkit brand, which included some hand-drawn graphics, and also some simple, pared-back icons for each store.
Understanding the style which would fit their brand, I then moved on to creating some very basic graphic drawings of photos taken on hikes in the Peak District. I made a few of these drawings to start off with, before moving onto the actual embroidery.
I then consulted with a technician in the Fashion Design studios of my university, who taught me how to use their embroidery machine. I needed to pare back my designs even further due to the constraints of their machine and how many colours I could use at once. Once I had learnt the software and mastered the machine, I was able to start producing my own badges.
One of the key points in the brief was that Alpkit wanted the new product to be 'sustainable'. I did some research before deciding on this idea regarding clothing waste and the environment.
This research showed that people are more likely to keep clothes longer and repair them if the clothes have sentimental value and are associated with fond memories. By attaching physical reminders of these memories to their kit, I believe that Alpkit can make their customers better at being sustainable with these clothes and repair them rather than replace them.
This research showed that people are more likely to keep clothes longer and repair them if the clothes have sentimental value and are associated with fond memories. By attaching physical reminders of these memories to their kit, I believe that Alpkit can make their customers better at being sustainable with these clothes and repair them rather than replace them.
App Development
The key driving idea behind this project for me was creating an app to go alongside the badges. This would tackle two more of the points in the brief - to 'promote the benefits of the outdoors' and appealing to 'a new generation of consumer'.
I started off with brainstorming what it was that I actually wanted the app to do for the user. What functions would it have? How could I make it easy to understand? What would the the user achieve from the app what makes them want to keep using it? What is the benefit to Alpkit as a brand?
I used Figma, a free website prototyping software, to create my app. I had a small amount of experience with this website in past projects, but I still had a lot to learn and problems to overcome to create my Alpkit app.
I started off with brainstorming what it was that I actually wanted the app to do for the user. What functions would it have? How could I make it easy to understand? What would the the user achieve from the app what makes them want to keep using it? What is the benefit to Alpkit as a brand?
I used Figma, a free website prototyping software, to create my app. I had a small amount of experience with this website in past projects, but I still had a lot to learn and problems to overcome to create my Alpkit app.
This project also gave me the opportunity to learn how to organize my work in the most methodical way.
When working on this app, I wanted the design language to be cohesive throughout. From my research of the Alpkit designs, and my awareness of current trends in app creation at the time, I managed to create icons, buttons and other design features which I think fit the brand and were visually appealing.
