TL;DR:

This was a student industrial design project. The prompt was to design and render an improvement on an existing product. I chose a MIDI Keyboard by Akai.

When/Where

2016 / South Bend, IN

Role

Creator, Sole Contributor

Duration

1 Month

Background

Although most of my work has typically centered in the digital space, I have a soft spot in my heart for elegantly designed physical products. As such, I made sure to take as many industrial design classes I could while in college, and I believe this experience has benefited my life and career in countless ways.

This project specifically, was in an industrial design class centered around design drawing and rendering. With the final project as open-ended as it was (redesign an existing product), my thoughts immediately turned to channel my love of electronic music and its instruments to find a product to redesign.

Unfortunately, most of my original sketches from this time period have been lost, but this project was important to me, so I included what I could find.

Process

I first had to find a product to center this project around. Easy, I was doing a lot of music production in my free time (and if I recall correctly, was actually in the market for an entry-level MIDI keyboard such as this), so I chose the MPK mini from Akai. I made this rendering in photoshop, learning a ton about how to paint objects with proper lighting, shadows, etc. such as to make a picture as realistic as possible.

Then came the redesign phase. Because the project itself was so open ended, I wanted to give myself a list of priorities that I saw would mimic the priorities of a real product design situation.

First and foremost, I wanted to improve the overall user experience of the redesigned keyboard
I wanted to improve the aesthetic of the product as well.
CONSTRAINT: I wanted to keep this product at (approximately) the same price point as the original. I told myself this because I knew it would be easy to go down the rabbit hole adding features and materials and such that would amount to the equivalent of the Rolls-Royce of keyboards, but I figured that didn't fit with the spirit of the project.

The above being said, I wanted to, as much as I could, think about every aspect of the product, from its form factor, to its interface layout, to the ergonomics, to even the materials that would be used. So I started sketching, both on paper and in illustrator, different form factors and layouts. I drew inspiration from all of the main companies that were making similar products, but also on my own musicianship to think of the ideal experience with an entry-level product like this.

Final Product

I settled on a design and rendered the final product, again in Photoshop.

I split the unit into two separate pieces, to be connected via USB. I thought this was critical for any musician hoping to perform multiple different instrument lines, as people often use the pads to play drums, trigger clips, etc. and the keyboard to play more harmonic or melodic parts.

I kept the same plastic build, but with wooden end cheeks and a red makeover for an aesthetic flair.