Product name: Pentel Multi 8 Pencil Lead Holder
Manufacturer: Pentel
Year invented: 2017
System of your daily life where this product takes part: Stationery collector, creativity, design system
Explain its function and relation to the system:
It is a mechanic pencil that can switch between 8 colors. As a stationery collector, it’s worth to collect due to its unique function and technical appearance. This pencil combines 8 normal colored pencil into one mechanical pencil. Switching between different colors let provide designers with. It makes design more simple and flexible by making the tool more portable and easy to switch. It provides more opportunities to work anywhere with more writing options and more color options. Unlike other mechanic pencils that only have one color, this pencil gives more space of creativity because we can draw and color different colors with these 8 colors. These colors include red, blue, yellow, orange, brown, light blue, green, ocher… We can adjust the hue and opacity of these colors. Also, we are allowed to mix these colors to create our own color. These colors can help us to depict everything we can see in our daily life because the chosen color almost include a very wide range. A sharper is also included so we can make thinner lines if we want to.
How can this product be improved to make the system and your life easier/better?:
I like to use different colors to mark the importance and priorities of different things as I write my planner. It helps me to manage my time in a more efficient way and make my journal more colorful. This pen is very portable and provides a lot of options and possibilities and choice of color. But the color scheme they chose it not very visually comfortable to look at, so maybe I should provide more options for the refills. Also as I draw the sketches of my designs, I may want to revise them or make the contour clearer, but I want to record the process of how I conduct it, using different colors to identify different lines could be a good way. When I am creating something, I may want to add some elements to my work, but I cannot come up with any idea at that moment. Looking at various color provide me with some inspirations. For example, blue may reminds me of sea, sky, blueberries, and sapphire… However, the color rendering index is not that high so I have to draw a same line repeatedly to make it clear, I cannot see which part should I emphasize and which part shouldn’t. This pencil make my category more diverse. I created a new category for it. Writing tool—>pencil—>colored pencil—>multi color pencil. It it the only multi color mechanic pencil I own and I think it creates some new trend and ideas for the stationery market. But it the appearance is lack of creativity and uniqueness. So I might change the appearance of it to add more value.
Product name: Midori Pouch Diary 2019 – Slim – Glen Check
Manufacturer: Midori
Year invented: 2018
System of your daily life where this product takes part: Stationery Collector, Planning, Journaling, Organizing
Explain its function and relation to the system:
This Diary is a combination of a yearly planner, a monthly planner, daily planner and diary. There is a holder for pen at the right side of the pouch and I put my multi color pen in it. It can store a lot of things and categories them very neatly. This cover is a card holder and I inserted a card-like tool box in it. The tool box include a ball-pen, a tweezer, a pair of scissors, a ruler and some other small tools. There is a zipper on the back. I usually put my receipts and coupons in that package. This pouch diary really helps me to organize my stuffs and tools. At the same help, the yearly planner, monthly planner and daily planner help me to organize my life. I write my planning for the next month or week or day. I check if I archived these goals everyday and I write some reflections on my day. On the page on the right side, I take down some of my little thoughts about life or record my inspirations in design so that I will not forget them.
How can this product be improved to make the system and your life easier/better?:
Before I began to use this planner, my life was a mess. I was aimless and I have no idea what I should do each day. After I started to use this planner and spend 5-10 minutes on scheduling my day everyday, I started to have a short run long everyday in order to achieve my long run goal. I think this helps to plan and organize my life. But there is not a specific page for me to write down my long run goals so I have to write it separately in each small corners and it is hard for me to check if I have finished them all. The function of storing things also enhanced my efficiency a lot. I can find almost any tool I wish to find in this pouch diary, writing tools, cutting tools, tapes, measuring tools, coupons… However, the space to store pen is very limited, but I would like to use pens of different texture and color in my diary. So I will add more pen holders to it. If I took this pouch outside, I almost took all the things that will be needed. If I came up with some ideas or notice something that I should do in halfway, I can write it down in my diary. The cover is made of cloth so it is soft and hard to write on. Writing down something is better than typing if I really want to memorize something. I prefer the texture of paper and the feeling of writing in fountain pens. I have fewer chances to write Chinese so I am trying to use the method of keeping diary to maintain my ability of writing Chinese. Also, handwriting can give me more hints about what I think at that moment as I am looking back to my diary. It may evoke my emotions and record my life in a more realistic way. But writing in Chinese with a fountain pen requires extremely high quality paper or the text will show on the back fo the paper. So I will enhance the quality of paper. Every year, Midori designs a bunch of new series of pouch diary with deliberated cover. I will make the cover more attractive to consumers and more connected to the theme of that year.
Product name: AM/PM Pill reminder 1-day
Manufacturer: Rite Aid
Year invented: 2016
System of your daily life where this product takes part: health system, organization system, daily life
Explain its function and relation to the system:
It helps to store pills and remind me the time to take pills. It’s very portable so I keep it with me everyday. Before using this organizer, I always forgot to take pills or not taking these pills on time, which reduce the effects of the pills. Also, if I forgot to take pills during flu seasons, I will probably catch the flu and cannot go to school. The storage of pill is not very large, it can contain the amount of approximately one day’s pills and I have to refill it day by day. By repeating the action of refilling it, the concept of keeping healthy and fit was deeply implanted in my mind and I feel like it has became a daily routine. It became part of my daily life and I feel I am have more awareness of taking care of myself than my peers. This is a good habit that I have and I will definitely keep this good habit to my future with the help of this pill organizer.
How can this product be improved to make the system and your life easier/better?:
If I do not own this organizer, it will be very difficult for me to keep the pills with me everywhere because the original pillbox is very large, weekly reminders are also importable. So I would never take my pills with me when I need to take these pills with meal if I am not having meal at home. But it also some other limitations. I have to put the pills into my pill organizer everyday and it is really complicated. So it is really necessary to make it larger so that I can refill it once a week. I will get ignore the fact that I am not taking any pills today and it is definitely not good to my health. Also, this pill organizer tells me what pill I have already taken today and which pill I have not by dividing them into 2 separate parts and put the instruction of “AM” and “PM” on it. But most meals are taken with meal. So dividing it into “breakfast”, “lunch”, and “dinner” would be a more reasonable way. And I will know which pill I am going to take next easily without thinking about what I have taken today and what I haven’t. Due to the structure of this pill organizer, the “AM” box and the “PM” box cannot be opened at the same time and it makes the process of distributing pills very complicated. I will probably change the structure to make the process more easy and reasonable.
Product name: iPhone 8
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Designer: Timothy Donald Cook
Year invented: 2017
System of your daily life where this product takes part: communication system, social life, relaxation, entertainment, record life
Explain its function and relation to the system (200 words):
My phone is the most common communication tool I use in my daily life. I used it to make phone calls, text and FaceTime so that I can communicate with my family and see their faces even they live very far away. I downloaded a bunch of software on my phone to enhance the equality of my life and fulfill my spare time. Similar to other people, I use instagram, microblog, and WeChat for social life and get in touch with the society. So it made social life more easier to access, sometimes we do not have to hand out with out friend in order to chat. We can do it directly online. I also listen to music with my phone when I am on my way to school. I listen to meditation classes before I go to bed if I am having insomnia at night. It helps me to relax and escape from the reality for a little while. I also installed some apps to watch TV shows and movies so that I can utilize the time on subway to entertain myself because there is no wifi or signals on subway and watching videos that have been already downloaded would be a good way to spend the boring time.
How can this product be improved to make the system and your life easier/better? (300 words):
I used to draw on the drawing paper and play games on computer before smartphones are invented. Smartphones allows us to use some softwares and play some games on a very small and portable device, but still hard to put it in a really fashion purse. I used to listen to music with iPod before I own a smartphone, and it is very complicated to import music into an iPod for me at that time. With a smartphone, we just need to download a music app and download music from the app. This provide so much convenience for me and more people can listen to music without the obstacle of importing music. Listening to music became such a easy thing but listening to music for a long time would be very harmful to our ears so it should limit the time of listening to music with a earbud or earphone. Text messages, voice messages, free voice calls, free video calls are provided with a smartphone so that we have more options when we want to get in touch with someone. But we really need to hang our with real people. Maybe phones should automatically send us reminder to hang out with real people. We do not have to read newspapers and magazines everyday in order to know what’s happening around the world. And we don’t have to wait in front of the TV for our favorite show, we can subscribe it in the app, download it, and watch it whenever we want. But looking at the screen within such a short distance is definitely more harmful to our eyes. So showing us how much time we spend on phone and shut down the screen automatically with the permission of user might be a good way to protect our eyes.
Product name:Bose SoundSport Free Wireless In-Ear Headphones
Manufacturer: Bose
Year invented: 2017
System of your daily life where this product takes part: entertainment, relaxation, health
Explain its function and relation to the system:
This wireless earbud is easy to carry and recharge. It can connect with any device that has bluetooth and play high quality bucks or other voices. I use it on my way to school to listen to some rock music. The bass wakes me up and gives me more energy so that I can have a better attitude to start my day and overcome obstacles with a positive optimistic mood. While I was jogging in the gym, I also like to use a wireless earbud because there will not be a tangling limiting my actions and speed. I usually listen to quick music to help to me keep a fast pace, encourage me to keep running and reduce the pain. It has great influence to me while I was jogging so it did some goods to my health. I use it while I am taking meditation lessons at night and it will automatically turn down if it did not detect my actions for a long time. So it helps me to fall asleep, at the same time, not influencing me after I fall asleep.
How can this product be improved to make the system and your life easier/better? :
While I was using it while walking on a windy street, I like to wear a hat and sometime the earbud is not attached on my ears tightly enough and it sometimes falls down. It is very annoying to pick it up on the road if I am in a hurry and I don’t really want to touch the ground on a such cold day. I will probably change the structure of this earbud to make it more tight. When I wear the earbud for a longtime without taking it off, my ears will feel a little bit painful so it is not a good choice for me if I want to wear it for a long time, especially when I forget to take it off overnight. I will make the size smaller so that I will not feel the existence of the earbud while I am wearing it. Although it can be recharged very easily, the charger box can only recharge it for 2-3 times. I use my earbuds very often so I have to recharge the box very often. The control buttons on the earbuds are not sensitive enough. While I was wearing a glove, it would be very difficult for me to press the button and adjust it into the mode I want. So maybe the button should be made more sensitive. Sometime I forget to put my earbuds back into the recharge box, when the next time I turn on my earbuds, it almost run out of battery it creates a lot of inconvenience for me. I will make the color of the signal light different if it is in low battery.
