Design Thinking PortfolioAlessandro Cau

“Now that we can do anything, what should we do? ”

Bill Buxton

Index

ResumeDesign ProjectsTiny Love - Product Design

Océ Design - Explorative DesignFragmenta - Experience Design

Philips Research Asia - Interface DesignCasamania - Furniture Design

Dutch Ministry of Transport - Automotive Design

Thought StreamContact

Quick Contact

alessandro.cau.milan@gmail.com 0039 331 75 18 758

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Alessandro Cau Industrial Designer

Design thinking

Education:

Past positions:

Inspired by:

Favorite tool:

What languages do you speak?

What’s your favorite invention of all time?

If you could redesign anything, what would it be?

Bachelor of Science - Eindhoven University of Technology | Industrial Design.Master of Design - Scuola Politecnica di Design | Industrial Design.

Unsolved problems and undiscovered opportunities.

The Bic Cristal Ball pen. I think it is a very purposeful tool for fast sketching to communicate ideas. Also I very much appreciate the design of the pen itself, in all of its simplicity it is highly effective.

Fluent English, Dutch, Intermediate Italian, some German.

Philips Research Asia - design internCanon group, Océ - design intern

The internet.

Toys for kids. I think a lot of toys are based upon stereotypes and often miss the opportunity to be of real value to the education of especially young children.

Software that I use:

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The Industrial Design bachelor course at the Eindhoven University of Technol-ogy relates to products and services that enable us to make optimal use of our environment and interact with it. It’s based on three important pillars: tech-nology integration, the user perspective and design in the broadest possible sense. All three are constant factors during the entire program.

The Master in Industrial Design at the Scuola Politecnica di Design provides overall competence in Industrial Design. It is oriented towards the solution of problems related to the individual and social application of the product, its form, production variables and technological process. The association with major brands in furniture design, consumer electronics among the others has the purpose of rounding off the education through workshops that develop creative design abilities.

Océ is one of the leading providers of document management and printing for professionals. The Océ offering includes office printing and copying sys-tems, high speed digital production printers and wide format printing systems for both technical documentation and colour display graphics. With head-quarters in Venlo, The Netherlands, Océ is active in over 100 countries and employs some 20,000 people worldwide. In 2010 Océ joined the Canon Group of companies with headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, to create the global leader in the printing industry.

Scuola Politecnica di Design

Philips Research Asia - Shanghai

Canon Group - Océ Design

Master

Internship

Internship

BachelorEindhoven University of Technology

2010-2011

2009

2010

2006-2010

Philips Research is one of the world’s largest corporate research organiza-tions. They develop new technologies and investigate potential growth areas for Philips. Philips’ healthcare department addresses a broad range of ap-plications and technologies in the healthcare arena, for both professional healthcare markets ( e.g. hospitals) as well as personal healthcare markets (healthcare devices for consumers). Their research is in such fields as chronic diseases, elderly care, molecular medicine.

Resume

Standing height around 1.70m.

Left brain dominant

beats an average of 70 bpm.

Shoesize 41

Hand size 18 cm

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Industrial Design ProjectsAlessandro Cau

2008-2011

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The Bloomat concept is an interactive mat on which babies can move around to reach and grab for objects around its corner points. The product supports infants that are in the process of learning to crawl and move around. Bloomat is designed through a triangular construction that uses surface tension to form an interactive surface for open ended play.

User research has shown that babies who play on their stomachs have an advantage in the de-velopment of gros motor skills compared to oth-ers. Thereby a baby’s motor skills are the funda-ment to any other development. Still today most of the toys for early infants are designed for the baby to play on its back. Therefore there is a huge market opportunity for developing toys that relate to this interesting fact.

Tiny Love is developmental toy production com-pany that is constantly looking for innovative de-sign within their branch. In 2009 they launched a project in collaboration with the Eindhoven University of Technology. The aim of the project was to develop ideas and eventually a toy that fits the profile of the TinyLove company

Situation

Insight

Story

Developmental toys

Individual project - Duration 3 months 2008-2009

Tiny-Love - BloomatInteractive Product Design

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TinyLove - Bloomat | Interactive product design

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Through an iterative process I explored interac-tions through tangible manipulation, meaning to control actions in a physical way. I was espe-cially interested in how functions could be ad-dressed tangibly and how a system could give haptic feedback to the user. The final concept is held private and confidential by Océ Design group in Holland.

Designing a printer without buttons means to dive in the world of tangible interaction, looking beyond visual interfaces. Therefore one needs to rethink the existing functionality of a printer and redesign it in a language that speaks to the users’ body.

Océ Design is the world leader in providing high-end printing and document solutions for professionals. In order to stay innovative, Océ hires interns to design for the extreme. Accord-ingly, in spring 2010 I took the interesting chal-lenge to design a printer without buttons.

Situation

Insight

Story

Tangible interaction

Individual project - Duration 5 months 2010

Canon group – Océ DesignExplorative Design

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Canon group - Océ Design | Explorative design

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The iterative process of solving this design ques-tion went through a set of prototypes that al-lowed me and others to experience sound and balance in the same context. Shhhoe is a set of pressure sensative shoes that measure a per-son’s weight distrubution and translates this into a background noise coming from four different directions in a space. In this setup one could actually hear ones balance through sound.

The sense of balance is a notion that is difficult to get across. Theoretically it all has to do with that what happens in the inner ear. Therefore I aked myself the question, can I communicate balance through sound?

Fragmenta is a performance and dance stu-dio that specializes in modern dance. One of their performances involved a balancing act in which their spectators had trouble empathiz-ing with the performers. Fragmenta asked the Eindhoven University of Technology for help de-veloping a wearable that could enhance their performance.

Situation

Insight

Story

Wearable Technology

Individual project - Duration 3 months 2009-2010

Fragmenta Performance and Dance - ShhhoeExperience Design

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Fragmenta Performance and Dance - Shhhoe | Experience design

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The design of the interface was based on ex-ercise mapping, connecting each prescribed exercise to a similar intuitive movement such as ‘drinking’ or ‘washing face’. The totality of these actions were grouped into scenarios re-lated to the activities that stroke patients wanted to recover. The interface structure is designed in such a way that it supports showing this infor-mation through engaging animations and feed-back loops.

Stroke patients suffer from as will mental as physical damage and often have a hard time communicating to and understanding the out-side world. One of the mental problems that many patients have is action memory loss, the disability of connecting words with actions. The interface that had to communicate prescribed physical exercises therefore had to be designed in a most intuitive way for stroke patients to un-derstand to comply to.

In 2009 Philips Research Asia was developing a home stroke rehabilitation device for stroke patients in China. The team however had prob-lems with the usability and understandability of the interface of the home device, which is con-nected to a living room television. During my internship I spent six months working for Philips in Shanghai to redesign their interface structure and the content shown on the screen.

Situation

Insight

Story

Interface Design

Team project - Duration 6 months 2009

Philips Research Asia - Shanghai HealthcareHome stroke rehabilitation

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Philips Research Asia - Shanghai | Interface design

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1+1=3 A kitchen, coathanger and waste bin designed for home and office environment, looking at the basic functionality needed on each one of these spaces and cuts it down to the essentials. The objects resonate with the dif-ferences in behavior within the home and office, making the object usable for both spaces. The aesthetic design of the objects are contempo-rary and follow a minimal and linear language of form.

When designing a product for a specific con-text it is important to understand the relation that this object will have with its environment. In case of designing for domestic and office spac-es, it is crucial to understand the different be-havior of people at home or at work. Secondly it was of importance that the objects would fit to Casamania’s contemporary design collection.

Casamania is a young Milanese furniture and lighting production company, that focusses on home and office products. In 2010 they asked Industrial Design Master students from the Scuo-la Politecnica di Design to design a compact kitchen, coathanger and a waste bin that could be added to the Casamania collection.

Situation

Insight

Story

Design Aesthetics

Team project - Duration 5 months 2010-2011

Casamania - 1+1=3Furniture Design

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Casamania - 1+1=3 | Furniture design

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Flow is a in-car communication device that gives people direct feedback from the database of the traffic control on the Dutch highways. The aim of the product is to increase throughput on the highways mainly by reducing congestion length. Flow informs people is by constantly giv-ing updated advisory speed that allows people to avoid creating and support solving traffic jams.

People often think that traffic jams are always caused by an accident or narrowing of the road, however this is not necessarily true. On the road cars accelerate and brake frequently which causes shockwaves in motion and there-by cause local traffic jams. With this knowledge at hand we tried to persuade people in per-forming better traffic behavior.

The Dutch Ministry of Transport is constantly looking for new solutions to improve the traffic flow on the Dutch highways. In spring 2008 they asked the Eindhoven University of Technol-ogy to come up with innovative concepts to sup-port their mission. With a team of five students we tackled this problem by starting with analyz-ing traffic behavior.

Situation

Insight

Story

Automotive Behavior

Team project - Duration 3 months 2008

Dutch Ministry of Transport - FlowAnalyzing traffic

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RWS

All seeying eye

Radio

Home

Communication (Intern)

TomTom

Emergency service

Join DepartLittle movement

Shockwaves

HighwayThe 3 phases

tra�c jam report

music

fun/ entertainment

familiar voice

new report (EON)

alarm clock

company

familiar voice

tra�c jam report

information on

tra�c jams

news info

music

fun/ entertainment

road inspectors

road maintenance

speed controle

route description

your position on the road

speed

track

remaining/ traveled distance

max speed control ‘beep’

boring co-driver

alternative routes

route description

your position on the road

speed

track

remaining/ traveled distance

max speed control ‘beep’

boring co-driver

alternative routes

inform RWS

screen accidents

recover road capacity

guide drivers ‘opzwaaien’

maintain safety

secure

clean up road

tra�c jam report

music

fun/ entertainment

familiar voice

new report (EON)

in case of accidents:

info on location/ size/ kind

route information

general information on road

accident or happenings

screen accidents

recover road capacity

guide drivers ‘opzwaaien’

inform drivers

measure

inform emergency service

use camera’s to search for the

cause of the tra�c jam

tra�c news

tra�c jam info

Through illuminated sign:

warn:

- accidents

- tra�c jams (speed)

- detours

- narrowing of the road

- road closing

- road capacity

measuring:

road capacity

amount of cars

structure on roads

average speed of cars

camera for details

teletext tra�c jam report

tra�c news

accident information

road solutions

info

gathering

centre

extra features:

Interaction

fun/ entertainment

unity

games

car:

honk

lightsignals

- Indicator/ blinker

- brake lights

- headlights

hand gestures

mooning

tailgating

eye contact

brake lights

Indicator/ blinker

honk

hand gestures

�irting

obtrusive driving

radio

mobile phone; calling

mobile phone; text messages

TomTom indicate position

extra features:

‘say’ good-bye

communication loss

po

ssib

le in

tera

ctio

n

po

ssib

le in

tera

ctio

n

po

ssib

le in

tera

ctio

n

RWS

All seeying eyeCommunication (Extern)

assumes an empty road

focusses on traject not on road

gives individual information

Dutch Ministry of Transport - Flow | Automotive design

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Why and How?Thought StreamMy design process is the most important thing for me as a designer. De-pendent on the type of project my process goes through various design stages; from research, sketching to prototyping and modelling.

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Why do I research?

“Design is as much a matter of finding problems as it is solving them.“

User interviews during a weekly gathering of el-derly in their lo-cal coffee house.

A selection of po-tentially interest-ing articles in the local newspaper.

This image board was a useful tool for getting a bet-ter understanding of the user.

A second exam-ple of an image board, these pho-tographes were made by the us-ers themselves.

Footage from a design project done in 2007.

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Why do I ideate?

“Good ideas are a product of hard work and looking beyond the impossible.”

Ideas were later-on put on the wall and grouped by subject.

The brainstorm result after two hours of idea generation.

An organized brainstorm with students from the university.

A camera brain-storm technique in order to get direct visual ma-terial.

Footage of ibrainstorm sessions shot during the TinyLove - Bloomat project.

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Why do I sketch?

“Visualizing thoughts and ideas is my way of looking into the future.”

An exploration of different inter-actions using the thumb.

A composition of a set of explor-ative form sketch-es

A problem sketch for redesigning a remote control of a projector.

Quick sketched render of the de-sign in context.

Quick sketches done for weekly design exercise.

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Why do I render?

“A picture says more than a thousand words.”

Digital render of an electric razor in Corel Painter.

Digital render of a nike shoe in Photoshop.

A set of ipod prod-ucts rendered by ballpoint pen and markers.

Fast digital ren-der of a vacumer in Corel Painter.

A selection of design renders made for non specific reasons.

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Why do I prototype?

“A prototype says more than a thousand pictures.”

An exploration model of a con-struction in car-board.

A quick mockup of a pressure sensative shoe to calibrate the sen-sors.

The prototyping lab at Philips ex-ploring new ideas and shapes.

An array of clay models.

Various different prototypes from diverse projects.

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Why do I model?

32

.00

113.11

39.0

1

86.57

5.0

0

69.0

2

19.8

9

16.0

0

7.0

0

52.99

38.03

35.75

1.7

33.9

2

14.51

46.38

7.79

4.6

0

8.0

0

6.4

1

4.6

6

2.61

16

.00

17.9

9

66.9

9

Stereo Walkman

Scale: 1:10

Units: mm

Date: 13/06/2007

“The details are not the details. They make the design.”

A detailed view on the battery slot.

Technical draw-ings exported from Rhinoceros.

Exploded view of a 3d model of a walkman in Rhi-noceros.

A snapshot of the Rhinoceros inter-face.

A 3d copy of an existing product on the market.

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Contact

I am always open for new ideas or projects. If you need any help just give me call or send me an email with your idea and I will be happy to look at it. This is what I like to do.

Alessandro CauVia Cola di Rienzo 320144 Milano Italia

alessandro.cau.milan@gmail.com 0039 331 75 18 758