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The Student Life an ongoing journal by Donald Lehman |
....who is Donald Lehman? |
March 31, 2004 Go to Bed by Don Lehman don@donald-lehman.com I’ve had some amazing design opportunities come my way in the past couple months. As I have written before, I have been doing a lot of collaboration with engineering. One project is a floatation device for handicapped kids so they can actually experience freedom of movement with out the constant aid of a caregiver. The group I have been working with has been together on this for almost two years now and we think we have a great design that will actually be put into use by a children’s center in town. Back in October, I started working with another group of engineers to develop a solar runway light. If you haven’t seen one of these before they are basically a light you stick into the ground that soaks up the solar power during the day and is turned on at night by a low-light sensor built into the solar panel. The idea we came up with moves beyond this basic concept and into a product category we don’t think anyone has hit on yet. The best part is we are actually going into a short run production, with plastic molds and an automated manufacturing process. Ah, the beauty of working with engineers. In January, I was approached to work on a medication dispenser for patients that have a multitude of prescriptions to manage. For some patients this product would mean freedom from having to organize as many as 20(!) medications. The mechanism the engineers have devised to dispense the pills is so amazing. It literally functions like one of those old Rube Goldberg comic strips where a mouse would set off an insane chain reaction of events. This project is working in collaboration with a local hospital that is actually looking to pitch the idea to pharmaceutical companies. At the same time I had been doing a number of freelance projects. One of my professors put me in contact with a local laptop bag manufacturer who was looking for a new line of cases to appeal to young professionals. This has been my first foray into the world of industrial design freelancing and has been a great experience. We got the first round of prototypes back in late February and are eagerly awaiting the revisions as I write this. And of course, it’s wicked awesome to get paid for doing design work. (People can make a living doing this?!) Thank god, most of it is over. My name is Don Lehman and I’m a recovering designaholic. It started out innocent enough. I couldn’t say no to these projects. Everything looked so good! But then one project becomes two projects becomes five projects. I tell myself I can stop at anytime but then I remember I’m still in school and have to actually do that stuff as well. So then I don’t sleep for about three months and forget a social life. But who needs friends anyway? They don’t understand me like design would. Design never yells at me or calls me fat…. A week or two ago I started hearing birds chirp. It was 5:30 in the morning. I was still up working on a project. It was getting pretty ridiculous. It felt like I was working non-stop since the summer. I honestly got to the point where it just wasn’t fun anymore. Worse of all, I wasn’t completing projects at the level of quality I expect of myself. I didn’t allow myself the time to. I hadn’t hung out with my friends outside of school in awhile. It’s my senior year of college, dammit! I woke up the next morning and decided to cut back on the amount of outside projects I was working on. Luckily, most of them were at the point in the process where they didn’t need me to provide constant work anymore and unfortunately I did have to tell the medication dispenser group that I couldn’t work for them anymore. But I am so much more relaxed now, and enjoying doing work again. So the last 5 weeks lay ahead of me. Hanging out with friends, finishing up some cool work, and, in theory, getting a job. There is also good road trips coming up: I’m traveling to the IDSA Mideast conference (this Friday) and the Northeast conference in late April. I hope to see a bunch of you come out in full force and support the team.  “I FEEL GREAT!” Design of the Month: Nutrigrain Ad. This is just phenomenal and probably the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The energy and randomness in this ad for Nutrigrain bars from Turnpike films is insane. I’m sorry I can’t provide any better description then that. It’s that good. |
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