OUGD603: Extended Practice - D.S.M Talk With Commuter

I spoke with my Dad who is a regular commuter about what train companies do and what they don't do. He was very complimentary about East Coast trains especially the First Class carriages. He was less than pleased with some of the other, smaller, train companies such as Northern Rail. As a regular commuter and a business man without an office within the UK he has to work from home and also on public transport.

"Trying to get my laptop out on a Northern Rail service is nearly impossible, there aren't enough tables"

I think that when I come up with my own train company I will ensure that all passengers get a table on every service so they are able to work on their laptops, it would also be essential to have a power socket and also free wifi throughout the service. When asking David about my idea to create a railcard he was very interested.

"Discounts would be great! It gets expensive"

From this talk I think I have a better idea about what to add within my train company and I hope to ensure user satisfaction.

OUGD603: Extended Practice - Design Something More Ideas

When it came to thinking about my brand I wanted to look at it in a way that I would be making the experience easy and also relevant to the people who need it the most.

I firstly drew out a mind map to determine who uses a train and what they use it for.

I then looked at one train company in particular - Northern Rail. I use Northern on a regular basis to travel to and from home. I find the experience incredibly uncomfortable and the environment unfriendly. I drew out a mind map to showcase the worst aspects of Northern.

After this process I came up with a few ideas.

I decided that the best way to approach this brief was to look at the most popular use of train - commuting. My dad commutes regularly for business purposes so I asked him what he thought could be improved about trains he said that it would be nice to have a railcard to save money on travel as it is getting very expensive. From this I looked into the available railcards and found that there was nothing suitable for business use.

I then decided to design and make a railcard for business use based on other cards that are commonly used.

I also looked at what a business man or woman would want out of a railcard.

Final concept:

My final concept is to create a railcard for business use which allows people to cut out more traditional methods of communication and also gain rewards, discounts and freebies for travelling. I also propose to design a website which links directly to the card and shows the number of points collected and also suggestions of where to eat during a transfer period. The idea behind this is to make the experience more like an airport experience.

OUGD603: Extended Practice - Design Something More Briefing

Today we had a visit from Design Something More or Something More, a new design studio based in Leeds. Jon, Stephen and Simon all came from Elmwood a global branding agency in Leeds. Their methodology is to make sure that all brands are a wonderful experience. At the start of their presentation they showed us a short video which was put together by Hungry Sandwich Co. (previous LCA students). I found this video a really interesting way to present themselves as a brand. I also liked the level of collaboration that they showed by using Hungry Sandwich to help them brand themselves. Though they didn't have any work to show us I was still very impressed with their presentation and overall attitude.

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Jon and Stephen briefed us the Ministry of Wonderful, which is basically making brands a wonderful experience. 

We were each given a brand/company which generally has a bad experience. I was given Train Operator.