The first week of this studio. The Monday class was the first class of the semester feeling both excited yet also a little nervous. Having been away for the better part of a year, the idea of going back to study had been a worry in the back of my mind. The class began with Our Lecturers giving us a quick overview of the work they have done over the design career and then dove into what the studio will be about.
As we were first explained what the studio premise was about, I was surprised at how broad it was. We were given the area of supermarkets, which was the food system market. We had to explore and research the sustainability opportunities, issues, and precedents within the supermarket area. At first, I was quite lost, but we were reassured that this was fine and as we funnel our way through the topic, we will begin to sift through the issue at heart.
The main objectives I took from the first class was that this is a research studio and to aim to do clear and concise research. Extending on that we were told to let the research guide your findings. That was something I told myself to be adhered to as much as possible. It has always been something that I have done in previous studios or even projects or at work. I try to produce a solution and then justify it with research. This always caused me to become restricted in what I could discover. The last major pointer I took from the first class was to be aware of biases of any form. We are a collective group of people from vastly diverse cultures and when conducting research try not to let my bias influence what I discover.
Thursday class! Coles is our industry partner for this course, which is amazing. Having an industry partner in a studio is always such an advantage. It allows our design outcomes to be directed into a real indusrty setting getting feedback direct from the industry. I have always found it to be beneficial.
They had multiple people in from the innovation team and talked about a range of various aspects about Coles. There was a lot of sustainability within the innovation scope as well as trying to create as little friction for the customer when buying produce and goods. Overall, I felt this to be helpful in gaining some insights into what Coles is planning to achieve. I did have my reservations about the style it was presented. The sustainability presentation was quite rehearsed. Also, Silvio, who was obviously higher in the ranks than the others instantly made himself known when he arrived late. I found that quite funny.
This week I began my research journey. Classes this week did not have any proper structure to it we just were in contact with our tutors to see how we are progressing. I decided to get started on my mapping early and really try and use a service design tool to aid in my mapping. I was really interested in the brick-and-mortar aspect of supermarkets at the beginning. Having just moved to Fitzroy North I paid even more close attention to the shopping experience at my new local Coles. This we a good coincidence because Fitzroy Coles is a Coles local which has increased sustainable actions put in place. I thought them to be a step, but it still felt more like a fancy Coles rather than a push for sustainability. Everything was sourced from your nicer producers such as St Laurant bakery and Philippa's bakery.
The week of forming groups! This was probably the smoothest group forming I have ever encountered! We seemed to all be sitting close together and just struck up a bit of a conversation. I did think Zoe had a very compelling presentation. Her dive into the circular economy was well backed up and I could really see there was a storyline to her research.
Angus had also just had his presentation on this Monday class having not been available last Thursday. His real deep explore into Coles and their sustainability goals was very interesting and unique to everyone else's presentation. So, Zoe, Angus and I started chatting and really trying to focus down onto what we think is important for this studio outcome. Luca also joined the chat and through this, a strong group was formed. From There, we decided to design a framework for Coles on how to become more circular in their supply system.
On Thursday's class we began to think how we want to tackle next week's problem statement presentation and how we will structure our groups roles. After this class we just left aiming to do some core research into areas of Food waste and how other food waste initiative s have developed their concepts.
On Monday's class we came back and presented our problem statement and Project intent. This was a very formal presentation and Beatrice believed it to be a good direction for our project. At this point we had to begin forming some ideas as to where our design concept would head. We had all been looking into design precedents and mine was mainly focusing on food waste. Over that weekend I had dived deeper into the research of food waste at the retail level. I began looking more specifically at the link of Circular economy and Food waste together the steps needed to take to create a successful model.
We then decided to come back to class on Thursday with each of the three Concepts in mind and then we can write them all up on the board and work together at finding a good direction for our design outcome. I began looking the use of all aspects of fresh produce. The diagram that caught my eye was what I ended up terming the cherry diagram. How do we eat the cherry flesh but throw away the stem and the pit? In a circular economy we need to use every aspect of the resource. So, my suggestion was to have a system in Coles in place where all aspects of fruit and vegetables are used. This is where I hit a little bit of a brick wall because I really struggled to come up with any other ideas. I kind of left it at that and came to Thursday's class with what I had.
Week six, this week we had our first Project review session, we would have to present what we have. This is where we presented the Avo loop Concept that we developed. Basically, creating a framework for fruit and vegetables that creates a fully circular model. You can refer to the presentation boards here.
We had mid Semester break coming up, so we made the call to really try and take a break this time and give us some time to reflect and mull things over. A few areas we did say we should look over was to look at creating some products for the Avo-loop system and to talk to an Avocado Farmer in the Mornington peninsula.
Came back with a good break and feeling refreshed to keep going! We came back to Monday’s class and began discussing how we develop our ideas further. We had a little scare, thinking our second assignment was due on Monday in two weeks. But we were reassured quickly that it was just another Pitch for proof of progression.
We began to think about how we can learn from other industries and initiatives that are out there. We discussed some places that we know. I got in contact with a grocer in Fitzroy north who has a successful self-refill milk station. We wanted to learn the consumer engagement of all this. How have the consumers reacted and what can we learn from this? This was really interesting I have never gone into the industry and talked to real people before for a studio. This sounds a little silly now thinking about it.
I then went into publishing the Survey we developed to gain some customer engagement statistics. I put this up on my Instagram story to gain some increased numbers. Over the week we got about 50 people to fill out the survey.
In Thursday's class we started to get a little lost in our whole design. We began thinking how this could be delved into a little deeper and really target the user in this design. We felt that the AVO-LOOP concept was not quite gripping at the core consumer. We started to brainstorm how we could tackle the consumer’s food waste more. The simple concept we came up with first was using self-check-out to know what the consumer is buying and then through an app be able to track when produce is become old and needs to be eaten.
This was heading into a general path, but it still felt a little bare and apps like this already existed. The biggest hole in this design as well was that there was no way of knowing if the produce has been eaten at home or not.
I think this is where our real challenge appeared. We wanted to target the consumers food waste at home, but we are working with Coles. How can Coles influence the consumers food waste at home? This is where a more educational approach comes into fruition.
We had another pitch on Monday so we began thinking about what we would say in this presentation. We really wanted to just show what we had.
Mondays Pitch was an interesting one. We had a little issue with our group with one member being absent for a while and coming back without much knowledge about what we were doing. I was also thinking of going a little crazy on the white board which I did not have time to do. We focused a little too much on the research when it would have made sense to maybe focus on the actual design concept more. The design concept was very up in the air, and we were given some good feedback about our Avo loop system having some major floors. The main one being if we want consumers to bring back their Avo scraps it's going to be tricky to make it into new products if the scraps are just being put into a bin. There are a lot of issues with hygiene and health and the cost in carbon footprint may become higher.
We decided that we really needed to brainstorm together and get something workable and down packed to then start putting it into realization. We decided to do a full day design sprint on the White boards in the Industrial design building. We went hard and put everything we had on the whiteboard. I think we circled back about two or three times but in the end we got there. It was still a little stuck but if defiantly was more practical than anything we had before.
This week we went into the process of making our presentation deliverables I ended up with the role of creating some 3D renders of how the system would look in the store setting. I also starting working on the style guide for the whole presentation. I created a mascot for the Grub Cycle presentation and service design. Grubby is our food recycling mascot for Coles. I had a great time doing this. I was always interested in vector illustrations, so this was a really good opportunity to gain some more experience doing this on the iPad. This week was incredibly stressful with a lot of work on my plate. Again, I found the split of work to be a little unequal. It was a little annoying that I was the only one with the most technological knowledge which meant I was the one who ended up doing all the 3D modeling and rendering, InDesign compiling etc.
Thursday was another day of just working on the assignment together and making sure we were all on the same page.
Presentation week! It was strange, I was quite nervous for this week not to sure why? I have never been that nervous for a presentation before. In Monday's class, we had a small presentation ready to present to Beatrice, and this went well overall. Beatrice hadn't heard our last changes in the plan so we presented that to her as well and she really liked it which she was quite promising for us and gave us good idea for the presentation on Thursday made us feel very confident about it and then we kind of just spent the last time in the class to just refine our presentations and make sure we all know what we're talking about.
So Thursday our big presentation. We had agreed to arrive at union a little early so we could go over the presentation and try and hone down to 10 minutes we arrived about an hour early and in building 45 we decided to just go over it multiple times create some cue cards we got to see the video which was really good and it I I don't went really well and then we headed off to the room to the old Magistrates Court where we would be presenting our presentation to Coles representatives.
We thought we'd just get it over and done with and elected to go first. Overall, the presentation went well. We kept it well within the 10-minute time frame and spoke clearly and the presentation was very easy to understand, and we got some good feedback from Coles. This is where we became a little disheartened or a bit deflated about the project, we overall realized that Coles wasn't going to put any of these initiatives into motion if it did make money that's basically what they were telling us which we didn't make us very enthusiastic about our design initiative. We thought we had done well, and it stood out, but then when other people's presentations were presented, and the feedback was given to them, we noticed they were giving the same answers. overall, it felt just quite generic, and you can feel like there was an actual willingness to consider these ideas and the ones that were really into liked were ones that were very Coles and not really look focusing on the core issue of sustainability within a retail setting.
Feeling a little bit more relaxed after the stress of assignment two and the presentation but we did come into class feeling quite deflated from our feedback from Coles realizing that our industry partner that we were presenting to don't actually want to put these initiatives or designs into motion unless they quite profitable for coals so that was kind of going against of what we were designing I mean we were designing an idea that steers away from consumerism and asks consumers to buy less in relation to the food that they waste and we could kind of tell that they were not going to agree with that so we left this week not doing very much thinking what are we going to do how can we do anything more we also felt like at the structure of the assignments was a bit strange having to present an almost finished presentation in week 10 and then having about four weeks to refine felt a bit strange.
So overall we kind of just thought we'd pick the boxes of what Coles had told us to fix on so looking at a bit more on the AI (Artificial Intelligence) side out of the project also looking at the time frame and the marketing and advertisement of the idea how long would this initiative be how many stores would it be put into all those kinds of areas as well
Week 12, the final week of class. This week, Zoe had a great new mindset that we could adopt for the presentation in week 14. She pitched the idea of potentially just sticking it up to Colts so I'm basically presenting it in a way that it is Coles and really showing that this is their responsibility as a major supply of food in Australia. Ine the week prior we were thinking of just sucking it up and making it as Coles as possible to make them happy. But Zoe asked us in Mondays class if any of us wanted to work at Coles and as we all clearly said no, she said when would you ever have the opportunity to say what you wanted at a Coles meeting? We are not their employees we can still make this our idea. So, we began to think how we could pitch this in a way that is still professional but clearly says that Coles needs to completely rethink their business model.
I then said what if we made the video be from the perspective of Coles, but have it made in the style of the Ikea video we showed the class as the start of the year. This would then clearly illustrate to them that there is a need for complete change in at Coles and we stand against the corporate ideology that Coles has.
Overall, we then also divided up a little of the workload again. I was always looking for an excuse to learn aftereffects, so I put myself forward to do the video. This may have been a big call and I might have increased my workload by a lot but all the learning overall! I began working on the Video and quickly realized how much motion graphic animation is... I had completed about 1 minute at the end of the week and I reckon I had already put about six to seven hours of work into it.