Had lunch at KFC.

Got home after school, sleep and then when I wake up, stared at my laptop doing work.

Well, that is just a snippet of what life of a student in DXPD(Diploma in Experience and Product Design) is like. What sets this course apart from the rest of any design course is that we do alot of user research, where we call it ethnography. Everthing we design we design with the people in mind and not for the people. What we do in this ethnography is that we observe people and capture key essences or even common things that people do and question ourselves why people do such things. There are a lot of ways to do ethnography, well what I usually do is to do interviews,

surveys and most of it observing people and taking a lot of pictures of them.

The part that I enjoy most would probably be the 'Aidieation' phase. That comes after the design ethnography phase. Here, you need to implement creative thinking to what you have studied while you are doing the design ethnography.

Just sketch out your 'Aidieas'.
Once you have consulted on your idea, and finalise it, then it comes the rendering part. This makes your 'Aidiea' more visual and clearer to see.

We also learned photography using a DSLR. It was fun. The pictures that we produce is really up to standard.

Other than photography, we also learn how to use photoshop. Though there were a few lessons on it, one could really learn a lot by exploring photoshop itself.

Also done in photoshop.

To further illustrate your 'Aidieas' we also got some lessons on Illustrator.

Logo design using Illustrator. A better alternative to show your 'Aidieas' are by 3D modelling using Rhino. With rendering plug-ins, one can make a photo-realistic product.

This was one of the more detailed 3D modelling where even the PCB is done.

Other than doing 3D modelling using a software, nothing beats presenting your 'Aidieas' than making the product itself. Well, we mostly do prototypes, doing it to be as close as our actual design, with the help of the facilities there.

It all seems very interesting and at the same time rewarding(especially when you look at you final product). It seems that it is a lot of work, well actually it is. The reality of this course is that you will have to sacrifice a lot of things. Those who don't, don't really do well in their assignments. Such sacrifices are the time spent(resulting in lack of sleep), money spent and for those having a relationship, it will really test your faithfullness.

Actually, this course do not have any exams, which means no study stress. A lot of other courses would envy us, as we do not need to study for exams. But we do have assignment stress. After all, this is school. Learning photoshop, drawing, sketching, photography and lots more is always fun. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy doing all this stuff?