James Melia
James Melia
BA (Hons) Furniture and Product Design
2011 Graduate
Company: V2 Studios for Vitamin
First prize in the Student Lighting Awards 2011
Tell us about your lighting design that won the Student Lighting Awards 2011
It is a versatile lighting unit designed for the High-End market yet still able to be mass produced. Kink has been designed using 21 High-Powered LEDs for energy efficiency. A custom dimming circuit board was developed to increase the versatility, lending the lamp to both ambient lighting and task lighting. The sleek cone shaped head can be angled side to side for additional functionality and to provide user-product interaction.
After much had work this year, little sleep and lack of social interaction it was really satisfying to have my work recognised.
What impact do you think the competition will have on your future career?
It has provided me much needed confidence in my designs, that alone will affect how my career progresses in a positive way. The contacts gathered in both the design and manufacturing industries will make the development of future designs much more fluid.
What has been the highlight of your Product Design degree?
The highlight of my degree was the manufacture of the prototypes, this is a very important element I think is often overlooked. NTU has excellent workshop facilities that allowed me to develop ideas in a tactile manner from start to finish. No matter how good Computer Aided Design programmes get - experimenting with materials, proportion and ergonomics will always be best in reality.
