Simon Larsson - Sketchwall

Shaver Sketching in Amsterdam

Below is a sketch that I did during a short sketch session in a hotel lobby in Amsterdam this summer, on the way to Portugal. The hotel host must have liked it because he asked if they could keep the sketch and put it on the wall. So if you are passing by a hotel called ABBA in Amsterdam, go in and have a look if you can find the original.

I was traveling with two close friends from high school (Polhemsgymnasiet, Gothenburg) Björn Grauers (in the middle) and Magnus Carlsson (to the right). It's really interesting to hang out with them nowadays because we all have choosen to continue our post high school studies with some sort of industrial design education, Magnus is now studying his 4th year in the Industrial Design Engineering masters education at Chalmers in Gothenburg, Björn is studying his 3rd year in the bachelor programme in industrial design at Konstfack in Stockholm and I recently graduated from the bachelor programme in industrial design at Umeå Institute of Design. I believe that these 3 educations are all top notch when it comes to Swedish industrial design educations, but with the big difference that the Chalmers students becomes engineers with skills in design while the students at Konstfack and Umeå becomes industrial designers and not engineers. It's really interesting to sit down with Björn and Magnus and get to hear what the differences are between the three educations and also to learn from each other, since we all get different competences and expertise.

The Picture is taken in Porto, Portugal this summer (2015)

Equipment: A black fine liner pen

Time: 30 min

Porsche Christmas Sketch

Doing some Christmas sketching. I just played around with a doodle that turned into something that looked like a Porsche in my head, so I kept on working in that direction. As usually when I start very light the sketch turns out ok. And still I start with strong lines way too early most of the times... Maybe I should have done something else with the head lights, but this sketch was never meant to be very serious and at the moment I felt like sketching some ovals and all of a sudden the car had spherical ligts. After all Porsche always had very round head ligths...

Equipment: Blue ballpoint pen

Time: 45 min

GETTING MY FIRST EMPLOYMENT AS A DESIGNER!!

Wooohooo!! I'm getting my first employment as a professional designer!! I had a meeting with my boss this thursday and she offered me a full time employment here at ÅF (former Ångpanneföreningen) when my 6 month internship expires in february! Basically that means that this blog has served it's main purpose since the idea behind it was to show my progress on reaching my goal of working as a professional designer. However, I will keep posting sketches and other stuff that I do both here at ÅF and in my spare time. Unfortunately, working as a consult means that I cannot show most of what I do, which is understandable. But I need to keep practicing on my sketching and Photoshop skills, so I will do my best to keep updating this blog with new, hopefully inspiring, posts. Cheers!

Below is a sketch of some sort of off-road car that I did the other morning when warming up before work.

Equipment: Copic markers, Photoshop CC (Liquify)

Time: 1 hour

ABT movie

Here is a movie that I have done for my thesis work the "ABT" (Autonomous Baggage Train), also known as "Handling of Air Baggage". I promise, this will be the last post about my thesis work for a while...

For the complete sketchwall post about the process behind the project, click the following link:
http://simonlarsson-sketchwall.blogspot.com/2015/07/handling-of-air-baggage.html

If the video doesn't work, click on the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82hne_sCnuU

Robot shell design

This is a short project that me and Fanny Bertilsson, a college at the ÅF Product Design Department, did in collaboration with the so called "Embedded" department at ÅF (engineers who work mostly with the technique inside products). They had made a small robot that came 2nd in the Swedish robot championships this year (2015), in the Sumo class and since it was going to be exhibited in different fairs during the autumn to promote ÅF they asked us if we could develop and produce a shell for the, at the time, shell less robot (The 3D model that can be seen on the "Sketching" image shows how the robot looked before the project). The Sumo class means that the robot is put in a small arena together with another robot and whichever machine that pushes the other one out of the ring wins. Both robots are completely autonomous and makes all the decisions without human interference.

So we spent just a couple of days on the project and made a moodboard, some form sketching and built the design in CAD to be able to print the model in my 3D printer that I bought for my thesis project (a XYZprinting, da Vinci 1.0A). The design is inspired by bugs because they feel robust with their hard shells and sit firmly on the ground, just like the robot needs to do to be able to push out it's opponent from the ring.

Once 3D printed the shell was put on the robot, which had been programmed to be controlled by hand gestures, before it was shown at a fair for unemployed engineers, hosted by Ny Teknik, as can be seen on the fourth image. The small thing on the table is an optical hand gesture censor that is connected to the computer via USB, which in turn transmits the signals to the robot wirelessly. It was very appreciated and it felt good to show that ÅF is not only an engineering company, but also does design. ÅF is one of the biggest actors on the design market in Gothenburg, but this is not so well known get because the design department has only existed for some years and is a such small part of the big, engineer based consultancy bureau that ÅF is.

Fair at Ny Teknik, Gothenburg

A new version of the 3D Printed shell made after the fair in ÅFs new Form 2 printer. Print time around 6 hours.

Print Details

The ABT becomes Spark Awards Winner!!

It's with great joy that I can announce that The Autonomous Baggage Train, which is the concept that my thesis project from my BA in Industrial Design, from Umeå Institute of Design resulted in, has won the highest award "Winner Spark!" in the international design competition Spark Awards!

Please take a look at my short presentation of the project on Spark Awards' homepage:
http://goo.gl/BVgPT1

Dude on a one wheeler sketch

Sketching a quick sketch of a dude riding a one wheeler to show a friend what sort of one wheeler I had seen the other day in Gothenburg. The intention for the sketch was first to be purely communicative, but since I made it quite fast it got a nice touch to it, so I kept working on it and added some shadows which is all very quickly done, but fills it's purpose. I'm starting to realize that really most of the times it turns out better if you work quicker.. The point is not to get a perfect sketch in the sense that every line is perfectly aligned to the next, but to communicate a feeling and a message to the viewer. Then, after you get the proportions more or less right by sketching the whole form, or motive, really quick and messy, then you can wither make a new layer and trace the first sketch, tone it down, or just add some descriptive stronger lines that defines some more important details.

Equipment: Phothops CC 2014

Time: 15 min sketch, 15 min shadowing

Internship at ÅF (former Ångpanneföreningen)

I have recently started a 6 month internship at ÅF (Ångpanneföreningen), a big technique consultancy bureau in Sweden, as an industrial designer and since much of what I do is confidential I will mostly upload some sketches or more conceptual projects that I do for fun in between some work to keep improving my sketching skills. Here is an image of ÅF's building, where I'm sitting on the 3rd floor. It's quite a contrast compared to school, but still I get to do pretty much the same thing, which is a great relief for me, since I was afraid it would be another world than what I'm used to. My closest bosses and some colleagues have also studied either their BA or their MA at Umeå Institute of Design, so it feels like they understand me very well and know more or less what to expect to me. That means that I get to do a lot of exciting real jobs toward real customers straight away, but still they understand that I'm quite green and maybe need some more time or some tutoring through some of the projects. All in all I think it's really exciting to be here and because of the very versatile work that I get to do I think that this is the perfect step for me to take out into the proffessional life now that I've finished my BA in Umeå. Still there is some road left to go before I can call myself a 100% real professional designer, since I'm still only an intern.. But hopefully it won't take too long before I can get a real employment.

Handling of Air Baggage

Here are some images from my 10 week long thesis work Handling of Air Baggage that I did when graduating from my bachelor in industrial design from Umeå Institute of Design. It has been a very exiting project in close collaboration with Swedavia - owner of most swedish airports, TYA - a company that works with improving the working conditions for workers within the transport industry and Aviator - ground handling company at Arlanda Airport.

The background to the project is that the airport staff working with baggage handling have a tough job, lifting up to 15 tonnes per person on a busy day. Every bag gets lifted manually 6 times on its way from check in to the baggage drop band, which is why the work is very repetitive and often leads to back, shoulder and other kinds of physical problems. My concept, the ABT (Autonomous Baggage Train) is an autonomous vehicle that transports baggage between the airport terminals and the airplanes. It removes 4 of the 6 manual lifting moments, shortens the waiting time for the arriving passengers, reduces the wear on both baggage and the airport's baggage bands and contributes to a safer working environment with less accidents due to human errors.

Keyshot Rendering + some Photoshop

Video Presentation of the concept can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82hne_sCnuU
More information about the project can be found on UID's online exhibition webpage: http://goo.gl/EcdSn8
The full thesis report can be read here: https://goo.gl/Fh7Yo6
The ABT was awarded the highest price in the international design competition Spark Awards in the autumn of 2015. The presentation of the project at Spark Award's homepage can be seen here: shorturl.at/lvO27
In 2016 the project was also awarded with a Red Dot award in the Design Concept category.
Feel free to contact me if you are interested in knowing more or have questions about the project by sending an e-mail to Simon_larsson_92@hotmail.com

Below follows some images that will give you a better understanding of the design process behind the pro.

Research at Umeå Airport

Research at Arlanda Airport, Stockholm

Concept Sketch

Moodboard - Dynamic

Moodboard - Intelligence

Moodboard - Trustworthy

Form sketches step 1

Form sketches step 2

Mockup

CAD - Rhinoceros 5

CNC milling a woodlike material called PU foam

Processing the surfaces by using sandpaper, primer, sandpaper, primer...

Adding color

3D printing

Assembling the model

Exhibition at Design Talks, Umeå Institute of Design

Exhibition at Semcon, Gothenburg.

The project next to mine is made by my friend, teacher and
strangely also class mate for half a year - Mikael Lugnegård.
He is a great source of inspiration!

"Money Shot" + Awards

Keyshot Rendering + some Photoshop

Scenario - Loading

Presentation at Designtalks, Umeå Institute of Design

Thesis work teaser

I have not been able to upload very much lately because of very intense work with my thesis work (BA in industrial design). Here is a teaser of the end result, but it's still not completely finished. In short it's an autonomus baggage train that transports baggage on airports. It's floor is divided into 5 conveyor belts that means that the vehicle can load and unload the bags completely without manual lifting. While doing my concept I have been collaborating with Swedavia (owner of most Swedish airports), TYA (Transportfackens Yrkes och Arbetsmiljönämnd) and Aviator (a ground handling company at Arlanda, Sweden's biggest airport). I will upload more sketches and images from the process when I get time. Right now I'm working very hard on making the last design decisions and building the model. So stay tuned to see more!

Equipment: Rhino (3D CAD software), Keyshot (3D rendering software) and Photoshop CS6.
Time: Probably around 50 hours in CAD (much of it spent on experimenting or learning the software properly), 1 hour in Keyshot and 4 hours Photoshop.