PORTFOLIO CARLOS BERNAD
Aesthetics of interaction designer with a focus on human-centered design.
ACADEMIC PROJECTS
During my academic years, I worked on different projects withing squads, and alone for my final bachelor project. In this section, I present some of my most important projects, that helped me build a path in design.
SAMMASATI
Sammasati is an explorative concept that focuses on encouraging mindfulness at work, from the scope of taking breaks. The user gets a notification on their laptop and they are encouraged to interact with the device. The user can now choose between rocks with different dimensions, which represent a break time. By reflecting on their needs, they allow themselves to get back to the present, and forget about the future. Afterwards they shall interact with the device by placing their rock in the stack, contributing to their work-life balance.
This course opened my eyes to the possibilities of making, and how different methodologies and programs can be used together. For this course, I asked Chatgpt to give me ideas for patterns, using extensive prompts. And these were visualized and modified in Processing, printed using Blender modifiers, and made into a pattern using a transfer press.
Areas of expertise
HUG BACK PACK
A concept made in the course Digital Craftmanship. This project was an exploration of a bag which creates the effect of a hug by embracing your body in different ways. It adds weight, heat and a breathing effect on the back. It also includes a box to carry sentimental items with you. In addition, the patterns on the device represent the dualism of the hugs needed and the hugs gotten and they are created using AI prompts, and modified using Twitter data.
Strijplay
To stregthen my prototyping and user testing skills I decided to course Design for vitality in a real life setting. This study aims to investigate if the combination of sports, play and autonomy can be used to increase social cohesion amongst the residents and visitors of the Ketelhuisplein of Strijp-S.
The idea was to create a vending machine containing sports and play attributes which would be placed on the Ketelhuisplein. We prototyped and user tested the low fidelity device in the real setting.
During this course I started to feel more and more confortable while making and modelling.
Areas of expertise
FUTURE OF MOBILITY
This is an explorative design research project about different ways of communicating direction in a future with symmetrical-looking vehicles that are fully autonomous, and omnidirectional. We proposed the possibility of using shape change to indicate the direction a vehicle is going to travel in. To explore possibilities for shape change in the context of a vehicle, origami was chosen as a possibility. Material research was done to come to a prototype that would fit the needs of a vehicle, first with paper, and later using 3D printing.
Areas of expertise
NGARU: SENSATION OF DATA
This is the concept developed for Project 2, withing the topic of sensation of data. Positioning is a key skill to acquire as this determines if you end up standing up on the board or not. NGARU is a sensor-equipped surfboard that supports novice surfers by teaching them the correct position on the board while surfing. It uses pressure sensors to translate the surfer’s position to a physical interface at the front of the board. Thanks to this more intuitive learning experience, beginners can finally enjoy the feeling of riding the waves.
Areas of expertise
ACCOUSTIC AWARENESS
This course is part of the Science of Sound and Music elective package. I decided to explore this out of curiosity, and due to my background in music production. For this course, we explored how changing room parameters(reverb, echo) and inducing emotions can affect someone’s annoyance rating. An acoustic virtual reality program (EAVR) was used for our controlled studies, where we interviewd several participants before and after experiencing the study.
Areas of expertise
DESIGN INNOVATION METHODS
This course focused on the business and entrepeneurship area of expertise. In this course I learned a lot of methodologies to be able to analyse a company and a case study. The goal of the course was to work as a design consultant, and come up with a new product or iteration for the company Amber. We used design innovation methodologies to come up with an innovation for their car sharing app.
Areas of expertise
MACHINE LEARNING ALGORYTHMS:
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This is the final product for the course Intelligent interactive products, which was made in a team. Through various input parameters such as the amount of white light emitted by the screen, the amount of blue light emitted by the
screen, how busy the screen is (screen change), mouse movement, and the sitting distance to the screen, the product detects the intensity of the work and determines after what time the user should take a break. We all used SVM classifiers before, and for the team assigment we decided to use ANN.
Areas of expertise
MACHINE LEARNING ALGORYTHMS: Downhill skateboarding positions.
This is my midterm project for the course Intelligent Interactive products. I used a SVM trainning algorythm to product different positions of downhill skateboarders. The algorythm would then display these predictions in a processing canvas, and through serial comunication, to a led. This project helped me develop my technology competencies and get a grasp of how a trainning model can be fed with data, and also how to connect this predictions with other softwares such as processing, or arduino.
Areas of expertise
HOT BEVERAGE MACHINE
This is my work for the course exploratory making. For this final project, we were asked to design an intuitive beverage machine.
I decided to make it as simple as possible adding a visible door to put the cup in. Apart from this, the selecting system was easy and intuitive as well as the knobs to decide how much sugar or milk the user wanted.
Areas of expertise
DEMO AT MIN 3:24 →
PERSONAL PROJECTS
During the past year, I worked on some personal projects with a focus on improoving my graphic design and digital making skills.
Because of my interest in aesthetics of interaction, and my positioning in the area of expertise of creativity and aesthetics, I worked on my rendering and modelling skills. I decided to use Blender because of its open-source nature, and its capabilities. Te main focuses where: Hard surface modelling to 3D-print functional parts, rendering to explore final looks of concepts, and finally, animation. I applied thse skills in different projects to encourage myself to learn new things.
I wanted to explore my making skills in the field of creating branding for a skateboard team. I focused on giving the team a logo, and the creation of T-shirt concepts as well as keychains. To do so, I used Blender and Adobe programs.
CONTACT
carlosbthomas@gmail.com