The Speaking Trophy
THE BRIEF
In 2023, I came second place in a competition within the Edinburgh College of Art, to design a trophy for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Recognition Awards. I worked in a group of three fellow Product Design students and proposed 'The Speaking Trophy'. Our main focus was designing a trophy that paid homage to the rich history of the college, as well as, celebrating the hard-working and dedicated people that work for the college now.
CONTEXT
As a part of our initial research, we explored the University's alumni and one person who really stood out to us was Alexander Bell, who famously invented the telephone and the gramophone. Bell studied at the University of Edinburgh in the mid 1800s and went on to completely change the way we live. Bell’s invention of the gramophone inspired us to look into how our trophy could play sound so that it becomes a part of the winner’s everyday life.
The Speaking Trophy
THE BRIEF
In 2023, I came second place in a competition within the Edinburgh College of Art, to design a trophy for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Recognition Awards. I worked in a group of three fellow Product Design students and proposed 'The Speaking Trophy'. Our main focus was designing a trophy that paid homage to the rich history of the college, as well as, celebrating the hard-working and dedicated people that work for the college now.
CONTEXT
As a part of our initial research, we explored the University's alumni and one person who really stood out to us was Alexander Bell, who famously invented the telephone and the gramophone. Bell studied at the University of Edinburgh in the mid 1800s and went on to completely change the way we live. Bell’s invention of the gramophone inspired us to look into how our trophy could play sound so that it becomes a part of the winner’s everyday life.
THE PROCESS
We started to prototype different designs where a phone can be placed into the trophy and play an amplified sound through the shape of the trophy. We experimented with its of different materials and making methods including 3D printing with PLA, metal bending, laser cutting plywood and cardboard. These initial designs were inspired by a number of things like the thistle associated with Scotland and the landscape in Edinburgh. After experimenting with our first models, we decided to focus less on the landscape and the thistle as we felt it took away from the original concept and didn’t add much to the design. We went back to the drawing board and came up with the idea of blowing glass as the top part into a funnel to mimic the shape of atypical gramophone; that way the sound will still be amplified. We then started to consider what the trophy could play.
THE RESULT
We came up with the idea of recording the nominations put forward and finding a way of playing them through the trophy. We thought a QR code that linked to these audio clips would work best. We made our first prototype of our developed idea by laser cutting plywood for the base and blowing the glass top. We thought this worked really well, especially because the sound was amplified successfully when a phone was placed inside. The only things we wanted to change were the colour of the wooden base and we wanted add a drawer for the phone to placed inside so that the sound it more isolated. We also thought a drawer would the a good place for the QR to be put so that it is hidden most of the time.
