FAB : Capstone 1

The Goal

The capstone project is focused around the Royals Society of Arts, Manufacturers, and Commerce (RSA) Student Design Awards, a right of passage for soon to be GBDA graduates. Framed through a course, this capstone project required of us to find a design solution based on a provided design brief that is unique, viable and impactful.

Design Brief

The Material World brief sponsored by the Biomimicry Institute provided us a How Might Statement to work off of.

"How might we apply biomimicry to create textiles, processes or systems
that enhance nature?"

Deliverables

RSA Student Design Awards Deliverables

• Hero Image - A poster to capture the interest of the judges
• Written Idea Summary- Problem, Process and Proposal in 150 words
• Proposal Boards - Four A4 sheets which fully summarize our findings and solution

Course Deliverables

• Business Model Canvas with a polished business strategy
• Market Analysis
• Primary and Secondary Research with Interviews
• Final Presentation
  

The Process

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Research

Without education in micro-biology, or material development we focused on using our strengths of business and design to approach the brief. We leveraged our skills to rapidly network: joining groups of biomimicry professionals, using Linkedin as a tool, attended conferences and webinars where we asked questions to guide our direction.

My contribution at this stage:‍

• Networking, using Linkedin I connected with 70 industry professionals ranging to entrepreneurs in Africa, academics from Belgium, France and Western Canada, professionals across the USA
• Finding published academic papers to find trustworthy sources of information
  
  

Ideation

There are a few key pain points which are lacking in the fashion industry which we aimed to address
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• there is disconnection between players of the supply chain
• this is underpinned by a lack of transparency and awareness maintained by a system which is largely opaque
• this disconnect inhibited accountability and change as well as the possibility for sustainable technologies to effectively disrupt the industry

Using a sprint method of ideation we diverged and converged to create a greater range of ideas. Bringing together the ideas we found common goal of creating social impact: from our discussions with industry experts much of the future success of sustainability depends on the perception and engagement of end consumers and getting them to care about sustainability, so our solutions focused on this.

This impact could be accomplished by giving communities a place to evolve and thrive. FAB was born as a platform which harnesses the benefits of data and UX design to customize the experience of each user based on their needs. So they can find and support one another. And Thrive.

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Business Development and Prototyping

Using tools like the Business Model Navigator, Ten Types of Innovation and The Business Generator book (Strategyzer Resources) we created a unique ecosystem which

Tools & Methods we used:

• Value Proposition
• Porters Five Forces (profitability analysis)
• PEST Analysis (trend analysis)

At this time Halina brought our idea into Figma and created a prototype while Paige and I completed the business side.

My contribution at this stage:‍

• Developed a Business Strategy by evaluating business structure pros, cons and fit
• Summarized our findings and strategy on the Business Model Canvas
• Market analysis with Porters Five Forces, PEST
  

Outcome

Proposal Boards

Our research and end solution were summarized into Proposal Boards which are the major submission to the RSA.

RSA Submission

We are currently submitted to the RSA Student Design Awards for 2020/21, the results will be available in May of 2021!

Going beyond the Classroom

After the completion of the project for the course and submitting it to the RSA Student Design Awards I have continued working at making Fab real and am currently participating in some student competitions.

The Fab project has been submitted to the following student competitions.