Montel Smith
BA Product Design
Having grown up in an artistic and cultural environment, my personal identity is the driving force of my artistic expression. I often create products tailored to my experiences and surroundings. As a result, my products are made to be supportive and empathetic, tailored to support a wide and diverse demographic.
Improving racial representation and diversity in the design industry.
As a young designer from a diverse background, finding mentorships in the design industry has been very limiting, and has resulted in me searching for guidance and inspiration in other fields. Despite the recent trajectory of diversity within the design industry, there is still a small population of designers of colours.
My project is meant to elaborate on this issue. In London I attended the In The Black Fantastic exhibition, which raised myself and others' awareness of black creatives. This inspired me to consider my own future and how I would want to be represented. In this project, I came across many forms of user-centred design processes and thinking, specifically black centred and equality centred design, by incorporating these lesser-known design process model will hopefully raise industry standards. I designed my own design process that was inspired by an amalgamation of these models and structured the whole of the project. My intent was to provide a basis for designers to allow them to collaborate and work on their biases. This project outcome will hopefully define a basis for new industry thinking, and produce more empathetic designers, for more representation of all demographics in the industry.
A promotional soft drinks bottle for the World Cup.
The product focuses on accommodating the user's experience through the product's features and branding. It is a fun and inclusive solution to enlighten euphoric and nostalgic feelings about the World Cup. Generational nostalgia is a core theme throughout every World Cup rendition, being a staple direction for this product. Past soft drinks bottle designs have influenced the bottle shape, bridging generational gaps by uniting new and old experiences. The animated feature of collectable coins does this through providing incentives and by creating mysterious and fun experiences.