Chitrita Saxena
Undergraduate
My designs are usually influenced by the inspiration of shapes and forms found naturally in our day to day lives and pushing these bodies to their limits, whether this be to abstract it to greater heights or to simplify it to a dot, whatever the product ends up being, I always make sure that as an Industrial designer, the experience that I relay to my users is clear, precise, easy and functional.
LAMP
Sophomore Studio | Herb Velazquez
The objective for this project was to design a lamp that has physical beauty when turned off, and celebrates the beauty of light when it is turned on. The environment that I chose for my lamp was a modern middle-eastern restaurant, specifically the Al Mahara Restaurant at the Burj Al Arab (Dubai). The lamp reaches a height of 6ft and utilizes metal swirls to create a fire like dynamism as the light reflections within the lamp draws the viewer's eyes to each swirl. Metal fabrication was an interesting process to learn about as well, from utilizing angle grinders, water jets, and the English mill, to troubleshooting the problems that come with a project of this caliber, this lamp has been a challenging but rewarding feat.
RINGS
Sophomore Studio | Herb Velazquez
As a college student, your brain is overflowing with information. Meal Prep and figuring out healthy eating at 2 am is probably the last thing you want to think about. With a messy, busy schedule, students find it challenging to keep up with a diet on top of their job, classes, and extracurriculars. To solve this problem, I've created a set of tools that help college students fast safely and effectively. These tools consist of 2 RINGS, one a wearable, and the other a screen that can be placed in the kitchen. These tools work to guide a user to stay accountable to their fast and adjust to their schedule to create a healthy eating routine for a student to follow.
ABLAZE
Sophomore Studio | Herb Velazquez
The objective for ABLAZE was to redesign a pyrography pen to be a more effective, easily accessible and overall an easier tool for users to use. Pyrographers often woodburn for hours on end, for days, and while the process of pyrography is enjoyable, there are many adjustments in the handtool that the users unknowingly compensate for and don't realize is a problem, causing issues like burns, strains, breathing problems and in some cases even arthritis. Taking many user interviews into account, I designed ABLAZE to create an ergonomic, user-friendly pyrography pen kit that addresses a lot of these problems.