Inclusive Design Service

This project was for a company in Wales that manufactured bath chairs.

Brief: to redesign a hand control that operates the bath chair.

Problems with existing product: heavy and sunk to bottom of bath. Bulky and hard to hold due to its size/weight. Needed 6 A1 batteries to operate. When batteries died there was no way of knowing how low the batteries were which meant you could be left inside the bath and unable to lift the chair out of the water!

The small photos under the sketches below show various hand controls from other bath chair manufacturers.  Some had suction pads to stick to the side of the bath, some with cable, others without. In general they were bulky and hard to hold by an average user, let alone someone who may have arthritis. Therefore my aim was to reduce the size of the hand control, or make it as ergonomic as possible.

The designs and sketches below show the initial ideas, Neptune hand control 1 concept was to design a “boat-like” control which floated, therefore would be always surfacing the water. Its shape and rubber finish prevent water from entering the inside and creates a pleasant finish to touch. The “up” and “down” buttons stick out, so that they easily recognised by touch. One is slightly smaller than the other to distinguish between them.

Neptune hand control  2

worked on the principal that the hand control could sit on the edge of the bath (due to its curved shape and outer material which adheres well), or the user could hook his/her arm through it and have it near him/her at all times, even hang it over the chair as indicated with yellow circle (this way it is always at hand).

The coloured buttons you see in the photos are the research I did into material finishes with adherent qualities.

Neptune Hand Control 3

This was the final design presented. It included all the functions and design features that I wanted it to include. The blue/green area is made of a rubber that adheres to the side of the bath, and also does not slip in the users hand, in order to make it as light as possible, I used a charger which would be placed near the bath, but far enough from the water. The buttons on the top are to lift the chair “up”, while the recessed purple button is to slide the chair “down and into the water”. there is a small hole below both green buttons, which is to alert the user when the battery is running low. A light will come on to let you know when you need to re-charge it.

Commercial and Private Interiors:

This Interior Design project was  for  an I.T. Shop in Angola, the Client was Ecil.

For this client we were given the logo of the company (Ecil) and the brief was to design the interiors of this space. The main focus was security.

Most products, small and large had to be in glass cabinets or with alarm. The plan shows the general layout and circulation within the shop and product distribution.

Here you can see elevations of each of the panels where the products were presented and all the images, chosen by us to go on each panel.

Side Elevations for inside and shop window display. Showing height and which products to be shown.

Top floor plan, showing which products were to go where.  As this project was all designed from Portugal, so all the detail was necessary to ensure the project and fitting ran smoothly in Angola.

All of the Graphic work had to be labelled so that when they received them they would know exactly where they had to go.

3 Dimentional Renders of what the shop would look like when complete. Renders are very important in any project as it gives a real-life impression of what it will look like.

Interiors for Domestic and Commercial spaces

This is a typical Mood Board that we do for clients to give them an idea of the colours, textures and patterns we are proposing.

Web Design + SEO

Decobello webpage that follows was done in record time, as the client needed it to be up and working so that they could start to advertise their services. We put in all the content they had and then we showed them how to manage the site themselves (which is what they wanted to do), as they have posts to put almost on a daily basis, and they requested that they wanted to manage the page themselves.

If you dont want/or dont have the time to manage the webpage yourselves, we also do this service, with a simple monthly fee and we will lift the stress off you to concentrate on other things.

In contrast, this RTSN webpage was for an IT company in Portugal who had their own logo already and wanted the DESIGN for their new page only. We provided them with these screen shots of each of the pages, and we worked along side their programers to reach the final result.

Solinor webpage was for an olive oil company in the north of Portugal. They also needed a logo design for all their products, so after we designed the logo, we also designed the webpage, as seen below, and business cards and  brochures.

IberiaPro was a recent webpage which we designed from scratch, for a new Estate Agency, selling properties in Portugal and Spain, but the webpage was in 4 languages.

Stand Design for Nomination, a jewellery brand

 Multi-purpose, Accessible Kiosks for Sintra´s County Council, Portugal

Complete furniture range designed for Madeivilar in Portugal

Knowledge Pavillion, Expo, Lisbon

This Event was done for the Knowledge Pavillion, Expo, Lisbon. It was an IT Event promoted by the Ministry of Education to show how all the schools in Portugal were connected via internet.

The Brief: was to design, produce and deliver, Furniture for all the event, Design, tables, chairs, lighting and for the outside create something eyecatching where the programme of the event were to be displayed.

Our proposal: After visiting the site several times, and due to the short time for delivering the project, we designed and delivered a 5m x 3m computer screen, as seen on the photos, where the poster with all the events occuring were posted.

The mouse, had wheels, so children could sit on it and a blue led light underneath.

To indicate the entrance to the Pavillion we designed and printed mouse prints which were placed on the exterior floor all the way up the ramp until the entrance door.

3000 visitors attended this event. The tables had this shape as the hexagon is a shape which forms part of the Knowledge Pavillions logo. The same applies to the colours used here. Apart from all the furtniture you can see on the photos, we had to design the graphics for 15 posters measuring, 2,5m x 1,5m, which had all the information regarding the different entities that the Ministry of Education was promoting.

Stand for Azambuja County Council

The Brief: To design, and produce a modular stand which the County Council could use in various events. It had to be flat packed and take up as little space (volume) as possible.

Our Proposal: We came up with a solution which envolved metal profiles, which were made especially for the client. these had a curved form not only to give impact to the stand but they were ergonomically designed so that the curved part was at eye level, for better legibility. The inner pannels are all modular, and can be printed on both sides and moved around from Stand to Stand.

The modules may also be displayed in various configurations.

Accessibility Speaker (Ponencia Accesibilidad)

Cristina Mota is an experienced speaker, having given speaches on Inclusive Design in both Portugal and in Spain. In Portugal for various Universities, namely University of Aveiro, Industrial College in Ourém, Lisbon at the Institute of Art and Design (I.A.D.E.) as well as in Spain. She is also a certified tutor and has worked in teaching Product and Furniture Design in Lisbon and also in the Design Academy in Marbella, Spain.

This is the first part of a Lecture I gave on the Present and Future of Accessibility in La Bobadilla Hotel (Granada).