What I learnt during my SMART Partnership
May marks one year since Associate Designer Patrick Richards began his SMART partnership, a knowledge transfer programme funded by the Welsh government that enables a three-way partnership between a research organisation, a Wales-based business and an associate who is based within the business to drive forward a project that will have a long-term positive impact.
In this case Patrick was able to split his time between us at PDR and 3 Sixty, a Cardiff-based creative studio, where he worked to develop more circular and sustainable design approaches to their Lightbox products. Lightboxes are a common piece of retail visual merchandising, normally built bespoke for each store design to enhance the visibility of a graphic or poster by having it lit from behind.
With the end of his time with us and 3 Sixty fast approaching, we asked Patrick some questions to reflect on his experiences over the past year and what he’s learnt from his SMART Partnership.
What are your general thoughts and reflections upon reaching the end of your SMART Partnership?
I can’t really believe I’m already at the end of the year, it’s gone so quickly it only feels like yesterday that I was starting the project. The time has flown by; I’ve managed to experience so many different things, from business models, to concept development, prototyping and user testing, I’ve managed to fit a lot into the year.
What were your biggest achievements during the SMART Partnership?
I’m proud of the concepts I’ve developed, the project had some difficult problems to solve and if I’m honest I was a bit nervous I’d be able to come up with anything unique or useful; but I think I’ve managed to do just that.
And it’s a concept that would stop a lot of textiles going straight into landfill so knowing it will have a positive environmental impact is really nice.
On top of that, 3 Sixty have now started to look at the circular economy in other areas of the business so I’m taking a bit of the credit for that as well.
What were your biggest take aways from the experience?
Probably that the design process is messy and unpredictable, I don’t think when we started anyone involved in the project would have guessed where we’ve ended up but that is the joy of design sometimes, it can throw up the unexpected.
How do you reflect on splitting your time between 360 and PDR?
The ability to get experience from two completely different environments has been beneficial and both teams have welcomed me with open arms, so I’ve been very lucky. And being able to design something in the place it is going to be manufactured has been great for me learning about how things are actually made in the real world.
Any unexpected experiences from the SMART Partnership?
Getting to go to the INTL design festival in Glasgow was a real unexpected highlight. Being able to hear from designers from different industries talk about their process was really inspiring. It was a packed couple of days filled with talks and workshops and I managed to meet some great people.
And learning HTML and CSS was a bizarre bonus, I had access to the course as a Cardiff Met employee so thought why not! Hopefully I can put the knowledge to use in some projects in the future.
How has working with Dr Katie Beverley (Senior Design Fellow and EcoDesign specialist at PDR) enhanced your understanding of circular design?
Katie has been one of the best things about the whole project, which I know will probably embarrass her, but she has been an incredible help. She was a great person to show concepts to as she could always see the problems and issues with them. Her depth of knowledge on the circular economy has been invaluable to the project and has meant I’ve learnt loads along the way.
She’s made me realise how much we take the linear economy for granted because it’s the way things have been done for so long, but there are so many other options; you just need to stop and think.