Tim Sharp - Visiting Lecturer

Today Tim Sharp from the company Uniform came to speak to us. Uniform is a design and innovation company which helps transform brands, we heard all about their different collaborations such as when they worked with mitre to redesign the print on their delta football. They started with simple sketches focusing on the idea of 'pushing forwards' and 'magnetism', they then presented these sketches to the people at mitre and they chose certain sketches to develop.

They also worked on a product called Scriball, which is a football designed for children to colour in. They worked closely with their team of illustrators to create three different characters that would appeal to children. In order to design the football they had to draw the design onto a football with a sharpie then take all of the stitching out so they just had netting of the shape, they did this to see how they could best design it so that when printed all over the lines that would cross over the stitching would match up.

Another project they worked was on a product called Grip, which indoor rock climbers the best route to take. The climbers wear a bracelet that uses RDIF technology along with a virtual reality headset, when the climbers put on the headset they are then told the best way to climb the wall and are also given a virtual coach to help them along. This product was really interesting as it is helping rock climbers perform to their best ability and with the sport recently making it into the olympics, I think it will son be a much sort after product

Out of all the lectures we have had I found this one the most interesting, I loved hearing about how they took companies and helped them progress through design and how they overcame obstacles throughout each of their projects. Tim left us with some final thoughts, such as don't be an energy vampire, bring creativity into everything and don't limit your self to your discipline which means be a general creative problem solver rather than just an artist or graphic designer.

Photo Credit http://uniform.net/work/projects/mitre-scriball/