J09

      For the Coleman project, I worked with my teammates Audra, Payton and David. I had a wonderful time working each week with them, brainstorming and bouncing ideas off one another. I felt like we were all extremely open and not shy to put any idea on the table when trying to think of a successful product for the Coleman Home Goods line. We knew we wanted a product that would be fit for someone our age, 19-23, who was living in tight quarters and going through some sort of transition in life. We all shared how living in either a dorm or a small apartment can be difficult with storage and on our wallets. I think we all thought something in the kitchen would be Coleman's best transition product, and the first tool that came to mind was the Swiss Army knife. It is an object that many Coleman campers commonly use because it is compact, portable, usable in multiple ways and affordable. After Payton came up with the name, Ustemsils, we knew we could get pretty creative with out product.
        We wanted the packaging to be 100% reusable so we decided to make the top and bottom pieces magnetic hooks that would store our product, and then outer "box" part would be a foldable cutting board. Each package would come with one main "stem" or handle, and 5 separate attachment heads. We brainstormed many different useful kitchen utensil heads, but settled on a ladle/cup measure, sauce spoon, whisk, spatula, and pasta strainer/drainer. Our Kiosk and logo sort of went hand in hand. We changed our logo form a lantern to a house so that Coleman users would still recognize and be familiar with the logo, but realize without the lantern it was the home goods side to the company. Our kiosk had a house shape as well, with branches to represent the light beams, coming off the side where our product was placed on display.
        I decided to take on the role of sketching and pulling the entire project together and creating a Presi. I had the easiest time envisioning the attachment heads and how they would store on the hook which would be attached to the fridge. I drew the spatula, sauce spoon, ladle/cup measure and then a picture of them all togther on a hook hanging. The Presi presentation was my first ever, and although it was extremely cool and way better than powerpoint, it took me quite some time to get used to! I also realized after watching the other presentations there are many more effects I could have used I didn't know about. I am happy I decided to do the presentation on Presi though, because it creates a cleaner, more hi-tech presentation and gives you a lot more creative freedom than a typical powerpoint.

       When we decided we wanted to make the packaging all reusable, I mentioned the hook and cutting board idea and didn't think it would fly. When the group liked it, I was both surprised and pleased! I basically laid out any and all ideas that came to my head, so I think that helped in making the others more comfortable about just saying what they felt. With group projects I feel it works best to keep the environment very comfortable, someone could have a great idea but does not have the nerve to bring it up. I also liked to not let an idea die. If someone brought something to the table, I tried to work with it or rework it until we had something that would be a good contribution to our project. The only thing I think I could have done better is maybe elaborate more on our product. When we finally got it down, we could have talked more about materials, drawn maybe more intricate sketches, and also talked about colors. Other than that, I liked that our group kept it simple yet practical so Coleman users could have an affordable and easy to use home goods product.