It’s one of the highlights of the Faculty of Informatics and Design‘s calendar, and a showcase filled with spectacular designs and concepts, tongue-in-cheek innovations and practical, functional fashion. The annual FID Year End Exhibition last week played host to upcoming designers, industry members and hundreds of interested Capetonians on CPUT’s Cape Town campus.

Themed “Come See my Work”, the exhibition saw students from the 15 different design courses, including Architectural Technology, Industrial Design, Interior Design, and Film and Video Technology departments, showcasing work completed in 2010, and work that won prestigious prizes or was highly commended in external competitions.

Kaleidoscopic in nature and almost overwhelming in scope, the exhibition was an incredible platform for these future design-leaders to introduce themselves, and their creativity, to Cape Town at large. Here are a few of the highlights.

B tech Graphic Design student, Orli Setton.

Setton is involved in an NGO working with high-school youths in the Western Cape, focusing on leadership and inter-cultural dialogue. “I’d like to use design for social development – and believe we can do more than just design logos or a “pretty something”. In Europe and the US, people use design to change health-care, education systems and politics. As designers we have a strong influential power. If we can convince people to buy things they don’t necessarily need, we can certainly convince them to do the right thing as well – it’s all about seduction!”

3^rd year Graphic design student Sandi Mvandaba says CPUT’s graphic design department is extremely hands-on from first-year. “Lecturers really take care of students, are very good at what they do and groom students to their full potential.”

Sandi Mvandaba

“Nested Light” by Anri Vercuiel of the Surface Design Department.

“The Tree of Knowledge Bookshelf” Megan Aitken (shown above), Surface Design.

“I am a bird” Hammock Nest by Juanne Groenewald.

BTech Fashion Design student Eileen Booysen designed a versatile and sustainable range of bridal wear for men and women. All the garments are simple and flexible enough to re-wear post-wedding as well.

Final year Btech Fashion Design student, Nabeela Moosa. “Autism is in my family and I saw first-hand the difficulties parents are faced with each morning. Getting the children dressed is a struggle and stressful for families. So I decided to design a range specifically for children with autism. This incorporates Velcro and elasticated shoulders, making it easier for kids to dress themselves.”

Springbokkies – The collected designs of 2^nd year Jewellery Design students.

Cacti Rings – Each cactus ring individually designed by 3^rd year Jewellery Design students.

Belt with Skulls. Jewellery Design student, Kyle Berry.

The stunning creation of Kim Nel, overall BTech winner of Top Student award in the Jewellery Design Department.

By Jan Weintrob

Written by CPUT News

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It’s the first of its kind in South Africa and a partnership that may change the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people across the continent. Leveraging research, scientific knowledge and skills through innovation, the British Council’s Africa Knowledge Transfer Partnership (AKTP) sees CPUT’s Department of Industrial Design working in tandem with Shonaquip, a local company that specialises in making custom-built wheelchairs and other devices for people with disabilities.

Under the AKTP scheme, high-calibre Industrial Design graduate Guillaume du Toit has been recruited by the British Council to work with Shonaquip, under the supervision of Industrial Design’s Dr Mugendi M’Rithaa, The agreement allows for Du Toit to gain business-based-experience in the company, leading to personal development. CPUT is able to enhance the relevance of their training and research for business purposes, while Shonaquip reaps the benefits of new knowledge, expertise and technology for future wealth creation.

There’s a legion of potential winners too – the half-a-million wheelchair users in South Africa, and millions more on the continent, the vast majority of whom  live in areas geographically distinct from the urban environments of Europe or the United States.

Shonaquip was founded in 1992 by Shona McDonald after her own daughter was born so disabled she couldn’t sit up in an ordinary chair. McDonald explains that in those days in South Africa, the only chairs available were small, medium and large folding hospital chairs, totally unsuitable for her daughter’s condition.

“I began making equipment for my daughter and here the demand for uniquely designed custom-made products began. With a workforce of 33, our manufacturing unit now produces wheelchairs and other aids for the disabled. To improve on our products and specifically to help them suit various particular disablities, Shonaquip joined AKTP as one of first participating businesses in the programme, realising that this could add huge value to the company in terms of innovation.

McDonald goes on to slate the cheaply-produced wheelchairs that are distributed in Africa by donor organizations like cookies at a party – and explains that given the needs of a disabled child, these generic, completely unsuitable chairs are doing untold harm and completely disempowering disabled kids. “With the wrong seating devices, their bodies only become more disabled, with further complication of the spine, and limbs. All kids who need wheelchairs will develop secondary health complications if not properly supported,” says McDonald. “If they were given what they need from beginning, they would not have such profoundly disabled bodies.”

Another huge consideration is that the US or European context where these chairs are produced is foreign to Africa, where there are relatively few pavements or flat areas. A disabled African child is more likely to have to contend with unpaved roads, rolling hills, and very challenging geographical constraints.

This is where the genius of linking to CPUT’s Department of Industrial Design comes in. McDonald is enthused about the partnership and says of Dr M’Rithaa,  “We share a great passion for universal design, solving disability problems, and looking at a more inclusive society. We believe our partnership will add value as we understand developing countries needs compared to the influences of European wheelchair design.

”Dr M’Rithaa agrees entirely, and says the Industrial Design Department is privileged and honoured to be involved. “This represents an opportunity for CPUT to test their theories in terms of universal design for disability and to get a real-life project to work on for benefit of students and lecturers.

"Not only is it a historic initiative in terms of the British Council’s involvement in South Africa, but it is unique on the continent among the Councils’ sponsored projects. We are the only ones focusing on disability through a link between a teaching and research institution like CPUT and a business like Shonaquip, which is driven by a social enterprise model. This is all about empowering people and making lives better through design. We’re therefore very excited about and committed to this unique and prestigious collaboration.”

By Jan Weintrob. 

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kevin Brand, an Industrial Design lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, has won the Mercedes-Benz South Africa Art and Public Spaces award for 2008.

Brand, who has lectured in Industrial Design for 17 years at the institution, has always been interested in art and design. To put it simply, he states, “I have always loved building things.”

Artists have to be nominated for the prestigious award which focuses on the artist’s career contribution to the industry. Owing to Brand winning the award he will have an opportunity to exhibit his work in Berlin, Pretoria and Stellenbosch. A competition catalogue will also be published with a large section presenting Brand’s work.

Brand, who doesn’t plan to leave the institution any time soon, enjoys reading, movies and golf during his spare time.

The University, which has a strong reputation for its design courses, is truly privileged to have a member of staff who has the calibre, skills and knowledge of Kevin Brand.

By Tyrone Van Heerden

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Industrial Design first-year students have again shown the power of design to change the perceived value of a material.

The Department was offered timber offcuts by a local furniture-producing factory, Woodlam. The aim of the project was to find a way to use the waste to create employment for small-scale craftspeople. Lecturers Kevin Brand, Craig Thomas and Veronica Barnes visited the factory and retrieved a huge pile of offcuts (largely hardwoods, but including some veneer) from the refuse bins, which found a new home in the corner of the first-year Industrial Design studio.

Students then worked in groups of 4 or 5 on a design project to devise a family of wooden toys.  After agreeing on the design, the students made their toys from the large pile of offcuts available to them. They worked mainly with hand tools, to simulate the limitations of the craftsperson’s environment. The toy families had intriguing titles such as African Robots, Endangered Animals, Global totem pole, and Animal buses.

Soren Lassen, owner of Woodlam Furniture visited the CPUT Cape Town campus recently to see the results.  He was astonished by the innovation and quality of the results.  All the toy families had made excellent use of the variety of timber offcuts from the factory. These timber toys should be further developed in second year by the same group of Industrial Design students, and will hopefully be manufactured in larger numbers as products made from offcuts – as part of a job creation project.

By: Veronica Barnes, Industrial Design Lecturer

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A group of first-year Industrial Design students reached out to those less fortunate recently when they took part in the Santa Shoebox Project.

The project is a community initiative that oversees the donation, collection and distribution of Christmas gifts to underprivileged children in South Africa and Namibia. Contributors to the project select children from the Santa Shoebox website to send personalised shoeboxes to.

Inspired by the cause, the group of Industrial Design students made several boxes, the contents of which included educational supplies, a toy, clothing, sweets, toothbrush and toothpaste, facecloth and soap.

Aiming to put a smile on as many faces as possible, the project hopes to deliver 100 000 gift boxes to children in Cape Town this Christmas, and many more to children across the country.

For more information about Santa’s Shoebox visit www.santashoebox.co.za

By: Nurahn Ryklief

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It wasn’t just the quality of these stunning mosaics that blew Industrial Design staff and students away.

Gale force winds nearly wrecked the entire project, which is a new feature of the Cape Town Design building.

The orientation week project by Industrial Design students took a week to complete.

The mosaic tiles are cut out of recycled magazines and hand-glued to the mountain-facing side of the building.

Each image features an important industrial design which impacted hugely society from simple things like a teapot and watering can to the iconic Behrens fan.

Industrial Design lecturer Veronica Barnes, who managed the project with colleagues Vikki Du Preez and Kevin Brand, says the assignment had a triple purpose.

VIEW FROM ABOVE: The bland wall is given a makeover by the colourful mosaics.

Students got to work together as a team, improve their environment and get an introduction into design history.

“We were having a great time but the wind kept blowing the pixels off,” says Barnes.

“We re-adjusted the project slightly so that some of the work could be done inside and we are very happy with the effect.”

Students started by prepping their wall, making at least three design sketches then using the donated magazines, they cut out the mosaic tiles and made a mock-up on cardboard.

Once the mock-up was approved by a lecturer the group applied the mosaics to the wall and sealed the design with a mixture of wood glue and water.

On Friday students presented their designs to one another making sure the entire class understood the significance of each image.

By Lauren Kansley

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Two CPUT students have triumphed at the annual Eskom Energy Efficient Lighting Competition.

Ashley Adami and Minette Maritz, both second-year Industrial Design students scooped first and second place respectively.

Ashley’s Nimbus Lamp is a structural masterpiece moulded out of bamboo and LED lighting while Minette’s Bamboozled light used the same materials in a completely different way.

Students had to design lighting fixtures for residential use and Ashley walked away with R30 000 and a Lenovo 7” Android tablet. Minette won the same tablet and R20 000 prize money.

Ashley says the design of her lamp took four weeks while the manufacture took a mere week.

“We had to use light in a sustainable and energy-efficient way and also use as little materials as possible in a unique way,” says Ashley.

“Bamboo grows like weeds is relatively cheap and is hardy,” she says.

The Nimbus is so striking that the Scibono Science Museum in Johannesburg is keen to display in for an entire year.

Four CPUT students made it into the finals of the competition and all of them were flown to Johannesburg for the interview and judging process.

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

CPUT Design students have turned their talents to alleviating the scourge of shack fires.

Students from Industrial, Graphic and Surface Design were tasked with creating customised packaging for an imported fire prevention tool called the Fireball.

The FireFighter is exported from China where it is used successfully in factories and small apartments.

The circular ball is tossed or rolled into the fire then explodes when its sensors detect the heat.

Students were divided into multidisciplinary groups of six and had four days to redesign the Chinese packaging of the FireFighter to suit a local audience.

They then presented their work to a panel and a winner was chosen.

One of the winning students Sebastian Bosman, who studies Industrial Design, says each discipline brought its own specialty to the project.

“I think our product is a good reflection of the huge amount of work we put in, the brief was also very specific and the lecturers were very hands on during the process,” he says.

“Everything from the colours to how the packaging could have a dual purpose was carefully considered.”

Industrial Design students focused on the actual packaging and wall mounting, Graphic Design students concentrated on reinterpreting the instructions while the Surface Design students concentrated on the materials used.

The FireFighter is a community outreach project of local company Ritcom who envisage distributing it in vulnerable areas soon. 

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

One of Cape Town’s oldest markets may soon have a facelift thanks to CPUT students.

The Informal Trader Project has seen CPUT students engage directly with Greenmarket Square traders in an effort to find a more design-friendly solution to a variety of issues.

The scheme is a recognised World Design Cape Town 2014 project and aims to rejuvenate Greenmarket Square which has a history of being the site of slave trading, a parking lot and a fruit and vegetable market.

Earlier this year the project kicked off when Industrial Design students visited the site and interviewed traders about the issues facing them.

These included weather conditions, damage to products during transit, pushing heavy loads through peak-hour traffic and the heavy labour involved in set-up and break-down each day.

Students also visited the site during the morning set-up and evening break-down to watch the full life cycle of a market day and experience the various sub-systems at play like the trolley pushers and stall builders who only perform one specific task.

The project is ongoing, although students have suggested a few options so far like a more resourceful wind and rain stall cover which suits all Cape Town weather conditions as well as involving traditional businesses in the area to find a more holistic solution for all involved.

Find out more about this project

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

CPUT students were at the forefront of creating an innovative product taking the US by storm.

Sole Creatures is an animal-inspired children’s shoe line developed by conservation enthusiast Gary Flax who identified CPUT students as the creative brain power he needed to get his project off the ground.

Flax travelled from Johannesburg to work with Industrial Design students and after an elimination process, four students assisted him in the development phase of creating the one-of-a-kind range.

Using Biomimicry technology, Sole Creatures design features an exterior as tough as rhino skin, non-slip soles featuring the animal’s print impression and the general look and feel of a rhino in the design.

TREAD: The sole of the shoe leaves a rhino footprint behind

Other styles in the range are inspired by whales and elephants.

Flax says he is indebted to CPUT for the assistance he received in the planning and implementation of his dream.

“If we don’t do something fast about poaching we are going to lose all of the rhinos. I aimed to make an attractive but comfortable shoe that would train and educate people about the rhino’s plight,” he says.

After getting endorsed by National Geographic Kids, the range has exploded in popularity in the US and a number of celebrity endorsements are currently being discussed.

But despite the imminent success of his creation Flax says he will never forget the incredible creativity and enthusiasm he encountered at CPUT right at the beginning.

“The students were so creative and did a brilliant job. I would love to collaborate again at a later stage,” he says.

Check out the range at www.solecreatures.com

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

Four years and over R500 000 later, what started out as a way of introducing Industrial Design students to industry has become a viable business model.

The R5K project tasks students with earning at least R5 000 by selling industrially designed products to a South African market.

In some cases groups have earned R140 000 with a single product and many designs continue to sell long after students have graduated.

The ingenious idea was the brainchild of Informatics and Design staff members Johan van Niekerk, Mugendi M’Rithaa and Bart Verveckken.

Previous popular designs was the Well Hung hook which allows you to hang a bag of groceries from a car seat headrest and Spoked, an adjustable cork bicycle handgrip.

This year students are once again thinking outside of the box with designs like a repurposed SAB keg braai, a food dehydrator and a pair of braai tongs (with a twist).

Production on prototypes start soon and the products will go on sale later this year.

The R5K project also caught the eye of the World Design Capital organisers and is a recognized project on their calendar of events helping to give greater attention to all the excellent similar projects being produced by the institution.

Visit www.imaginethat.org.za for more information on all CPUT’s WDC projects. 

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

The generosity of the Ackerman Family Educational Trust is proving to be a great boost to Industrial Design’s exciting project to develop universally designed products for the disabled.

CPUT’s Universal Design guru, Prof Mugendi M’Rithaa and his students are currently hard at work developing a unique range of kitchenware for those with special needs, in collaboration with Hekkie Brink. Brink, a disabled person with one arm who had already been developing his own range of products was introduced to the Industrial Design department by Mrs. Wendy Ackerman. CPUT and Hekkie have now entered into a formal working partnership with funding graciously approved by the Ackerman Family Educational Trust. The challenge is now on to develop Hekkie’s products into a commercially viable range.

Master’s candidate, Luciano Wegmershaus, is one of the students involved in the project. He’s passionate about socially responsible design, sustainable design and universal design and says he feels a moral obligation to act. The very grateful recipient of a bursary from the Ackerman Family Educational Trust, Luciano says partnerships such as these between people like Hekkie Brink, academia and the design industry are critical in helping people with disabilities.

“I would like to thank Mrs Wendy Ackerman for her support and her belief in this project. Without the aid and altruistic intentions of such generous donors, projects such as these would surely fail.”

The crack team of designers, known as the UD@Home team, plan to have these innovative kitchen aids in store by as early as next year.

Written by CPUT News
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

After months of hard work CPUT students’ creations will finally go on display at the Cape Town Carnival on Saturday evening.

Industrial design students have been diligently creating the floats and intricate costumes that will ignite the FanWalk in Green Point and wow thousands of spectators- and CPUT staff and students are encouraged to join the fun and support them.

This year the theme is ‘Imagine’ and Carnival Creative Director Brad Baard says CPUT students did plenty of that when creating the floats.

“CPUT students bring great energy and creativity to the event,” he says.

“Their mad-cap imaginations are like a creative melting pot of ideas and we are very grateful to them.”

The Cape Town Carnival consists of over 2 000 costumed performers, a spectacular parade of giant floats and live musicians which together make for an unforgettable experience.

The public is encouraged to start lining the streets from 3pm tomorrow in order to claim their seats, the parade then starts at 7.30pm.

The fun culminates in a party where DJ Fresh and MiCasa will perform.

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.