*This project focuses on design process more than visual graphic, and it also involves some biology. Biodesign is a newer idea and not all designers have experience with it...
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Duration: 6 months
My Role: Design Lead
Design Type: Product Design + UIUX Design
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Program used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe After Effect, Figma, Miro
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BioShine Prototype created by Megan Wang (Me)
BioShine Shopping App
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BIOSHINE
Jan 2020 - Jun 2020
Team:
Mikaela Pham, Megan Wang, Olivia de Polo, Pavithra Pandian
Problem:
Mica is an iridescent mineral that is widely used in cosmetics industry. However, the use of Mica is not sustainable and it is often mined by young children. BioShine's goal is to look for an innovative and an ethical approach of making iridescent makeup product.
Brainstorming:
BioShine spent six months brainstorming and researching the possible approach with the solution.
Solution:
After brainstorming and reading more than 50 scientific research papers, the team finally came up with a solution to create a Mica replacement, also a glittering alternative, using bacterial cellulose.
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Who is BioShine's target audience?
The next step is to identify our target audience. We are solving the problem in the cosmetic industry, and we know not everyone needs glitter, makeup product, and certainly, not everyone cares about sustainability. Therefore, identify the right customer is really important. BioShine conducted a survey, and identified our Persona Jennat is our target audience.
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Creative Process
My Role as a BioShine Design Lead includes:
-Branding
-Prototype Making
-Photography
-Social Media Management
-Videomaking
Iridescent in the Sun. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
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BRANDING
Black and Gold Theme
My contribution to branding was to choose our theme color and match the font to our logo. The plant graphic symbolizes sustainability, and it also represents the science material that we used in the production of our product, which is cellulose.
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PROTOTYPE MAKING
I was assigned to make our prototype. Before I created a physical prototype, I did sketches on the paper to visualize what I want our product to look like.
Making our prototype was the most challenging part. Due to the pandemic situation, our school and our lab were all closed. Our product needed to be created by science procedure, without a lab, it was almost impossible that we would have a prototype ready for the competition.
As a design student, science really isn't my area of expertise. However, I read through the research papers under the circumstances, and I was able to tackle down the key material and purchased it through a supplier. I performed a simple experiment in my bedroom and I produced the glittery bio material we wanted.
To make our prototype look exactly like what I visualized in my previous sketches, I grinned the film into fine powder, and I packed them in a container just like the sketch.
To make our prototype look more completed, I printed out stickers with our logo, and I covered up the cap of the container with the sticker.
Study Iridescent in my own room. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
The science material used in the photo is a private information, I do not have the right to publish it on here.
Making Iridescent Film in My Own Bedroom. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
Example of What Film Looks Like in a Container. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
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PHOTOGRAPHY
All of the BioShine photos were taken and edited by me. To show the iridescent quality, I set up a small studio in my room, and I shoot photos with a flash. I edited my photos in Adobe Lightroom, and I did some minor retouch such as removing the dust or shadow in Adobe Photoshop.
Here are the prototype photos.
BioShine Powder. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
BioShine Gel. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
BioShine Powder Swatch on My Skin. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
BioShine Gel Swatch on My Skin. Photo by Megan Wang (Me).
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SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT
Social Media Management was not my main role, but I did help with creating some Instagram post and Instagram stories. I also helped with adding useful hashtags and organizing the layout.
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VIDEOMAKING
Due to Covid-19, the Biodesign Challenge competition was held online this year. For this reason, every team was required to make a video presentation that is no longer then 10 minutes for the competition.
I was the only person in our team who knew how to film, create, edit, and render the video; therefore, I took lead on this part and I made everything from scratch. At this point, the competition was only two weeks away, I was working under the time pressure, but I planned out my time well, and I was able to deliver our video on time.
The program I used to create the video was Adobe After Effect, and I used Adobe Media Encoder to Render the Video. The video had two part, the first part was our creative video, which was meant to grab the attention of our audience, and the second part was our presentation.
I recorded many scenes like this in my room. Video by Megan Wang (Me).
1st Iteration:
The first iteration of the creative video contained scene of our prototype with a music background and a voice over. However, the team and the instructor preferred not to have a voice over in our video (despite I really liked it), so I created our second iteration.
2nd Iteration:
In my second iteration, I removed the voice over and added the script to the video instead. I also worked on our presentation video and I embedded our presentation video with our creative video. The whole video was over 10 minutes, which is over what the competition required; therefore, my third iteration was to edit the video and make it fit into the ten minutes frame.
Final Iteration:
My last iteration was all about editing. I cut our creative video short and I removed all the unnecessary parts in our presentation. The result was our video fit into ten minutes frame and our team was successfully being selected as a finalist team from University of California - Davis.
Here is the final video:
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BIOSHINE APP
JULY 2020
Team:
Solo Project
Problem :
I first began with identifying the purpose of the application. The goal for the application is to purchase the BioShine product.
Design :
Hand drawn sketches
Walkthrough:
This is the video walkthrough of the design I created using Figma. In the beginning, the user would tap on the screen to the main page that features BioShine's new product. The user will then click on view product, or find the product page from the navigation to view the listed product.
The user can place his/her desired product into a shopping bag, and a check out button will be available at the bottom of the screen. Finally, the user will have access to check his/her order history by viewing the user profile.
The user can place his/her desired product into a shopping bag, and a check out button will be available at the bottom of the screen. Finally, the user will have access to check his/her order history by viewing the user profile.
SUCCESS MATRIX
The goal of BioShine is to produce a sustainable to replace mica, and we made it happened by creating an iridescent shimmer using biology. To know if the product we made is equivalent to the current mica that is selling in the market, we will need to test our product on the skin to make sure it is safe for users, and to maintain the iridescent quality. BioShine's application is to help the business to meet its goal; therefore, BioShine will rate its success by collecting the number of products being purchased through the application, and by following the increasing number of new customers each month.
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WHAT I LEARNED
I learned to work as a team with different people. Our team was formed with science and design students, while the scientist research on the scientific part, myself as a designer help them to visualize the science.
We faced many team dynamic situation because everyone's core value was different. One example was that I preferred the video with voice over and others do not. I learned how to handle criticism of my work and I learned to accept different opinions, which improved the result of the video.
I learned to work under pressure. As I mentioned before, I only had limited time to create our video for the competition, this included, video script, video clips, video editing, video rendering, etc.
What I learned the most was multitasking. I was assigned for so many visual assignments. I was making our prototype while planning on the video script, I was taking and editing the photos while managing the social media. When I started to work on the video, the prototype was just made. Everything was really fast, but I learned to set goals and planned out a schedule for myself, I was able to deliver quality work one time.
