N E O K L A S S I C [2007], designed by Andrew Seunghyun Kim Options

[Andrew Kim]

Hello everyone, I have been working for a long time on a new project called, neoKLASSIC. You may remember me from my previous project, the Butterfly (http://www.productdesignforums.com/index.php?showtopic=6093). Anyways, please comment and criticize my work, there is always room for improvements.

Designer: Andrew Kim
Age: 15
Goal in life: Attend RISD
Program used: Photoshop CS3

Links to images (They are supposed to by connected):



<a href="http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/2848/neoklassic1fu9.jpg" target="_blank">http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/2848/neoklassic1fu9.jpg</a>
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6941/neoklassic2nc1.jpg
http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/405/neoklassic3gi8.jpg

[bowlofnoodle]

Wow nice boards and renderings!!! You're 15 yrs old? ZOMG
Well done dude, I like the the styling as well.

Post up a thumbnail if you want to be featured on the front page. Same size as the other thumbs please.

[Spezz]

Well, done. There isn't really anything I can say to improve it. Looks very professional.

[grasshoper]

the drop area can be related with the graphic on the gadget. ı could not understand why it is upper right corner instead of bottom right corner or vice versa... could ı explain

[yogis]

well for you skill the room of improvement is really small. nice work

[ishimaru]

@#$@#$ thats awesome.

[Ferdie]

First of all this is nice work being displayed. Don´t get me wrong but I still believe you get some support on those projects.

As a little critique, those last two projects samples seem to be graphically inspired by Apple, which basically isn´t a bad thing at all. It just makes a difference if you adapt other people´s works or find your own way. In your case, should you be still in high school, this period of development has just begun and will evolve in the upcoming future (if you are interested in it). The aim in design is, in my eyes, becoming a complete designers with skills and knowlegde on a broad basis. After all, we should look left and right and not always straight forward!

[Cyberdemon]

First of all this is nice work being displayed. Don´t get me wrong but I still believe you get some support on those projects.

Don't we all get support on projects? Even at the college and professional level, we still have input from professors and collegues. I highly doubt a high school teacher has graphic skills on that kind of level.

Andrew - Nice to see you kept busy over the summer. As with the last project I think the real strength of the project lies in the quality of your presentation. The graphics, the text, the boards all work extremely well and better than 90% of the portfolios and professional projects I've seen.

With that said, I'd love to see you try and actually push your designs themselves, and really start developing your sketching and form skills. If you can get your sketching up to the level of your graphics and rendering skills -- crap, I think you'll probably be more qualified for a design positon than some graduates.

Also see if you can get a CAD package for a christmas gift -- educational licenses are pretty cheap and it's a great skill to go into college with some background in.

[kadajawi]

Amazing. Simply amazing. I thought the Butterfly was a bit overrated, but this thing I love. Nice presentation, nice interface and icons (been struggling on mine), nice font on the interface (a bit Zuneish maybe), nice ideas. And it looks gorgeous, I love wood on modern devices Makes me not wanting to present my new mobile phone design.

Uhm... what I don't like is the dialing... it's cool and all, but I doubt it will be very fast. You might want to offer a normal alternative.

Is there a clear coat of plastic over the whole phone to protect the wood? Looks nice, but maybe it would be nice to feel the grain aswell.

I agree with Cyberdemon, some 3D modelling skills would be nice, you've done that in Photoshop?

[Andrew Kim]

Thanks everyone, here are personal comments:

bowlofnoodle, thanks, but what do you mean about the "thumbnails"??

ferdie, thanks, but I am sorry to say this but I didn't really get support from anyone... I would love to, but as many of you may know, public schools don't really get much funding, and are near welfare. I do go to an art studio to create my portfolio for admission to RISD but even there, the knowledge in this field is extremely limited. This is the exact reason that I come to this website. Most of my lessons are from the tutorials on this very website. Also, this is how I render: I usually visit electronics websites and look at the products they have. I basically use vectors to replicate that "feeling" that I am trying to achieve. Then the rest is done with trial and error. Anyways, thank you.

And Cyberdemon, thanks again for your great support! I just wanted to clear something out, when you said, "sketching" did you mean that in terms of marker or pencil sketches? Like the work that one may do before the finalization of a project? Well, I have been working alot during free time, and I'll be posting pictures for criticisms. Also, is CAD a necessary for becoming an industrial designer? For some reason, it seems really complicated and somewhat overwhelming for me. If you really think I should get into it, I'll pick up something.

Kadajawi, thanks, and I see what you mean about the dialing method. And also, yes, there is a clear coat of plastic over the "wood". Also, yes it was done completely in photoshop (The greatest program ever).


PS: I would like it if any of you can link me to more "tutorials" or something of that sort. And if you know any good sites for product design (I really can't find much), please also post it! By the way, I should really thank my parents more than anyone. At the begining of this project, my computer couldn't handle the huge file sizes, and my monitor had horrid colors. They have been really supportive, and bought me a new computer (quad core) and monitor (30" Samsung) to help me continue my work.

[Cyberdemon]

And Cyberdemon, thanks again for your great support! I just wanted to clear something out, when you said, "sketching" did you mean that in terms of marker or pencil sketches? Like the work that one may do before the finalization of a project? Well, I have been working alot during free time, and I'll be posting pictures for criticisms. Also, is CAD a necessary for becoming an industrial designer? For some reason, it seems really complicated and somewhat overwhelming for me. If you really think I should get into it, I'll pick up something.

Yeah, good old fashioned paper sketches. It doesn't matter how good you are with a computer, if you can't spin out an idea on a napkin with a ball point pen, being a designer becomes very difficult. Pick up the book "Design Sketching" http://www.designsketching.com/ (If you don't want to order it online and you have a local college with a design program, their book store may carry it and may be willing to mail it to you).

Play around with understanding good perspective for complex forms, and have fun with it. Draw space ships, robots, something that you enjoy and doesn't necessarily have any pre-concieved ideas for forms. If you only draw cell phones, you'll become limited in your form development and explorations I think.

And CAD is a necessary evil in most fields. If it's any consolation, I got my first CAD package when I was around 13, and I was nowhere near as talented. I just made robots and things out of basic shapes and gradually learned more and more, but it was the beginning of understanding how to make things in 3D space and definately helped once I got to college. When the rest of the class was learning how to make boxes I was on to making cars.

It's good that your parents support you...heck even I don't have a 30" monitor!

[kadajawi]

Do you mean CAD in the sense of CATIA etc. or does stuff like Cinema4D, Maya, 3DSMax or Blender count too? At least C4D I find pretty easy to learn (took me 2 or 3 months or so before I did my first car, although admittedly it didn't turn out as I wanted it to, but I made to few sketches before, and I'm terrible doing those), just go through the supplied tutorial, get an idea of the program and where the stuff is located that you need, what the program is able to do, then maybe make a few more tutorials, try doing your own stuff, ... also helps to do all sorts of thing, try doing a car etc.

Nice support you're getting there, I would love to get such a system...

[Cyberdemon]

I mean CAD in the sense of pretty much ANY 3D application. Poly modelling programs like Max or C4D may not have much use in the solid/surface modelling world -- but they do provide an understanding of 3D space, and give you a chance to play around with shapes and forms in a way thats generally much eaiser and much more forgiving than Solidworks or AliasStudio.

Maya/Alias Studio have their personal learning editions which are free and include tutorials. Once you begin to understand how things like CV curves work, extruding, things along those lines you can begin to create more complex shapes. Plus if you learn to create pretty renderings early on, once you learn more advanced modelling techniques you have a heads up on everyone else who might have great models but terrible renderings.

Considering how well he's doing at Photoshop, I don't think he'll be too overwhelmed by 3D as long as he just starts with the tutorials and works his way up. I prefer Alias/Maya because there documentation is fantastic.

[Andrew Kim]

Thanks everyone!

Cyberdemon, you've recommended that book to be before but I completely forgot to get it. Thanks for mentioning it again, my birthday is coming up soon, so I'll try to get that.

[Samantha Soo Hyu...]

Wow...승현님 정말 잘하셨어요
저는 미국에서 공부하는 15살 Samantha 라고 해요,
근데 정말 이 핸드폰의 이름와 옆모습을 보고 깜짝놀랬어요.
어떻게 저런 기와집같은 모양의 핸드폰을 생각해 냈을까.. 하고서요...
그래픽프로그램을 아직 전 사용할줄도모르는데, (그리기만하는)
앞으로도 더 좋은 디자인 기대할께요 !

Andrew you are very impressive,
hope you improve more as you do some more works !