Italian Product DesignDigital Booklet

Candace Thompson

Creative Brief

Name of Product- Smart Stool

An innovative stool that is futuristic, multipur-poseful for family use, eco friendly, and easy to use. This product will begin looking like a reguler stool fitted for a bar stool, yet at the push of a button the back and sides of the stool elevate up, transforming the piece into a comfortable piece of art one can live in. Also at that push of a button, not only do the back and sides elevate but the product is capable of moving up and down, making it multipurposeful as a chair at the dinner ta-ble.

“Where design becomes smart.”

Problem/Solution: Many people are not comfortable sitting on a stool for what can be multiple hours with in a day. These people can suffer from neck, back, and joint pain as the stool causes stress on joints. To ease this pain in the neck I creat-ed a stool that looks like your everyday usual product , yet it transfers into a product that containes side arms, a back and neck rest for those long days one has to sit. Not only can it be used as a stool but with these key features and evolvement this product can also easily be used as a dinning room chair, whether it be adhereing to a large number of guests or as your everyday furniture, saving space and cost in the long run.

Target Market: Wealthy Italian family, couple, or single.

Product Evolvement

Rough idea to have the stool begin looking like a reguler stool fitted for a bar stool, yet at the push of a button the back and sides of the stool elevate up, transforming the piece into a comfortable piece of art one can live in. Also at that push of a button, not only do the back and sides elevate but the product is capable of moving up and down, making it multipur-poseful as a chair at the dinner table.

A birds view of how the rough draft would look from the statements on the page be-fore.

Product Evolvement

Gianvito Rossi A famous shoe designer who cared more about form and functionality rather than runway styles. His mindset makes me want to focus my product more functional while being comfortable to minimize back and neck pain

Many of his designs were nude, how-ever if they weren’t then they contained a transparent strap to make the his shoe look as natural as possible. His designs worked which leads me towards the mindset to have my product look as natural as possible while using a natural or transparent color pallete.

Sergio Rossi

Ethically focused for our planet. Used Liquid Wood for the heal of his shoes. Liquid wood is a chemical compound composed of Lignin. Lignin is a component mostly remvoed during the papr making process and usually is discarded or burned for fuel. Lignin gives wood its strenth as well. Using Lignin in my stool production would make my product ethically focused as well as making it strong, durable, and lasting.

Sergio Rossi

Sergio was known for working with so-phisticated materials that matched the color tones he chose. Since I am going for a more simple and futuristic look I would like to keep the color palette for the frame more basic and natural tones, while the cushion contains a pattern that is durable, ecofriendly, easy to clean, and correlates with the color palete chosen for that specific stool.

Konstantin Gric

Creates simple, minimalist industrial products that are also functional in human terms, combining maximum formal strictness with considerable mental acuity and hu-mor. This stool creation is simple and minimal-ist when it comes to looks, but also high tech and futuristic when it comes down to function-ing it. However, I would want my product to still have the mental acuity Gric has in his de-signs so consumers are not scared of the prod-uct and use it.

The lip on this stool keeps the cushion sta-ble and in place and also allows it to be re-moved easily to be cleaned. The look shown is sophisticated and also comfortable-all things I am trying to achieve for my product.

I admire how this head/back piece seems as if it is floating in mid air, but I think this product may be too futuristic for the every day home and I do not want to over do it and go that route.

This product must contain that equal balance of classiscal elegance and modern creativity just like Gio Ponti carried through.

The electronic back piece of my stool will form into a high back and sides to follow and resemble the historic Italian product de-sign found in their couch productions, whom seeked inspirations from the Greecians.

Gio Ponti created an angular armchair named “superleggra”, which was very strong but yet very light, so light it could be lifted up by a child. Ponti’s creation of the superleggra inspires myself to create my kitchen stool stur-dy and durable enough it could last a life time, exceeding any weight limit, yet light enough it can be moved around the kitchen and other parts of the household to redeco-rate or accompany more guests.

The Romans followed in the steps of the Greecians when they searched for ideas to create their charis. Both of these designs con-tained a solid rounded back made in one piece with sides set on a rectangular or semi-circular base. Even though this concept is so simple, I am yet still intrigued and inspired by it because its functionality works. The design has been around for centuries and products that contain this design format still sell today.

Ettore Sottsass joined the Memphis Group, along with other young architects in 1981. Later on he established the Sottass Associa-ti where he recently designed the 111 Navy Chair (left). This chair is made only of 111 recycled PET bottles and inspires me to yet have another way to make my product re-cycleble and eco friendly.

Originally, I had thought of making a high chair piece evolve out of the front of the stool as well, making life easier on the new or ex-perienced mother when it comes to feeding her child or hosting a gathering for family or friends. Recently I have drawn away from this idea since I would like my target market to be much larger than mothers who have a new born to toddler or are expecting. Howev-er, I noticed these cosmetic brushes in a store and ad-mired how they suctioned down. These brushes gave me an idea to possibly sell an add on to the stool seperatley to those who want or are in need.

Early Romans used the folding stool in households as well as by Roman officials. This folding stool contained cross legs sometimes connected by stretcher bars. In a way I be-lieve that this type of stool would work well for my desing in the minimalistic aspect however, I do not think it would work well when it comes down to the way the stool operates and works.

Kartell is a modern, fu-tureistic store which sells all things plastic. Since I am wanting to go the eco friendly route with this prod-uct, I do not believe that plastic would be the way to go. How-ever, I do admire the simplicity and futuristic approach of this chair featured. The only thing I would change, besides making it an-other compound would be making it more comfortable for the consumer and user.

I enjoy the contem-porary look of the back of this chair. It is exactly the look I am going for, how-ever I would need to make sure this prod-uct is comfortable and functional for the consumer. To add my own twist I would add some inspiration from Gianvito Rossi and add a transparent backing where there is a cut out already existing in the chair.

This stool is too futuristic for my taste, I also dont believe that it would be very comfortable for my consumer nor woul it save space in their household.

Up Next- Look more into Eco Friendly fibers and fabrics to use Engineering of the product Packaging Branding

Donald Norman “Good design should make you happy” Make things neat & fun Make the design fucntional & beautiful “Plesant things work better”

I found the stools shown at a local pasteria in Rome. The shape and for-mat of the product immediately caught my eye and I was intrigued. I became even more inter-ested after sitting on it to find out it was super comfort-able even with the minimisltic aspect. From here on my design was pushed heavily off this shape, with many tweaks.

Here you can see more of an ariel view of the seat. I added slight padding to the seat part for more com-fort. The coloring is all white so the padding also blends into the chair.

I chose the style of this seat because its unique yet functional. The seat forms to the body beautifully and comfortablly.

Shown is the full side view of still the stool nonex-tended. The base is metel and circular to allow full 360 degree rotatation. I also provided a foot rest for maximum comfort if desired while the stool is at the highest point.

Here you can see the formation from a better angle. The product is still functioning as a stool and is still not fully extended.

I extended the back and as you can see I made it so the backing would form to the human back, again for beauty and comfort.

Side view of stool fully extended backside

Here in the back side I added a transluscent piece into the back from inspiration I gathered by the Rossi’s. Semi Side view, full extended back side.

Another button also allows arm rests to ex-tend up into the stool. This is only allowed when the backrest of the stool is fully ex-tended.

Shown is a better view of the transluscent back rest and armrests

Side view of the stool at its most extended state-armrsets and back rests.

Ariel/side view of the stool at the most extended state.

A close up of the right arm rest. A cup holder has been developed in for maximum functionality.

A close up of the left arm rest. I designed the arm rests wide enough to set a cup of coffee, a book, or a coke on without having to use the cupholder.

Shown is a full frontal view.

(I appologize for the crappy sketching.)

To make my design even more functional for every-day life I dedcided to include two small box/shelves for storage. If my consumer is a reader then they can easily store their morning read with their cup of joe under the chair.

Shown is the close up view. The box is small so it is not noticable to the eye at first but functional enough to store up to two books.

Here I revaluated my back seat and decided I wanted it to extend up to 12.5 inches for more consumers comfort.

Next-

How it worksChair formation sketches

I focused on the webbing aspect of these shoes to almost provide a nettting for the back rest of the stool. At the be-gining I had a transluscent plexi glass piece, but now after reviewing Sergio Rossi in a deeper aspect I enjoy how he made his designs fitting to the human body for comfort and almost minimalism, while making them beautiful. The design of this netting will mak the product more eye catching and innovative while also making it comfortable. Designs of the netting are shown to the left.