The Design Interviews (“DI”) interviewed Mohamad Montazeri (“MM”) about his innovation, “Shine and Find”. You can read the interview below.
“DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
MM : In astronomy education, training constellations has always been difficult, time consuming and sometimes even tedious. For this reason, making this training easier has been one of my concerns in recent years. “Shine and Find” is a training aid product to make constellation training easier. This product is designed in such a way that it can teach all 88 constellations in the sky to the user in a simple way. Education along with fun and enjoyment without fatigue. “Shine and Find” is actually a simplified form of the night sky and constellations.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
MM : In terms of form, simplification has been as important as possible. In addition to making the product beautiful, form simplicity is more successful and attractive in training constellations that have their own complexities.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
MM : Mass production of “Shine and Find” worldwide. Because according to the studies that have been done, “Shine and Find” has a good potential to be among the educational aid products in the world.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
MM : About a year.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
MM : I am a designer. In addition, I am an amateur astronomer and astronomy promoter. I always saw the difficulty of teaching and learning the constellation when teaching students and astronomy enthusiasts. So I designed “Shine and Find” to meet this need.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
MM : I have not received an offer yet. But I am definitely looking for mass production and I welcome good offers.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
MM : Personal interest, good idea and feeling the user needs.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
MM : I do not have a specific case in mind, but in general, many studies on astronomy teaching methods, especially the constellation, as well as teaching aids, were very important to me.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
MM : Astronomy promoters, astronomy students, all astronomy enthusiasts, especially people who are interested in constellations.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
MM : I invented “Shine and Find” and there is no similar example to meet the needs of users.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
MM : The phrase “Shine and Find”, which is considered as the name for this product, is a kind of encouraging and motivational phrase to encourage the user to work with this product and learn the constellations. The user lights the marbles by placing them on the board, and finally the constellation appears. In fact, “Shine” refers to shining stars, and “Find” refers to finding constellations. “Shine and Find” means shine the stars and find their constellations.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
MM : 3D Modeling, rendering and presentation software.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
MM : The three factors of a good idea, beauty of form simplicity and creative performance, make this product attractive and successful in teaching concepts to the user.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
MM : I designed this product individually, but I enlisted the help of several relevant experts in making the final prototype.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
MM : In the design of “Shine and Find”, technology played the most prominent role in the manufacturing sector. Construction of delicate marble lamps with the ability to conduct electricity in the place of rings and also a thin board with conductive rings on the body of each cavity.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
MM : Yes. In the first stage, a lot of information about various methods of teaching astronomy, especially constellations, was collected and examined. Also, a lot of information was collected and reviewed by various educational aid products. After making the prototype, several analyzes and experiments were performed on the product and its operation method and their results were analyzed.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
MM : The most important challenge was the construction of marble lamps and the thin body of the product, which was finally successfully completed with the help of advanced manufacturing technologies.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
MM : I always welcome any kind of challenge and excitement. International design competitions also have their own challenges. The challenge has always been interesting to me.
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
MM : This project had good technical and engineering lessons for me.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
MM : I think the interview was complete and good. Finally, thank you for this interview.”
Also, you can read the interview here.
And, for more information about the Shine and Find, see this page.
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