Visualization Tool Reflection

Naga Raju

Design Thinking for Innovation Final Assignment

Challenges and Selection

One of the main challenges I faced as an event planner and decorator is creating a design  which suits the client’s vision and budget but does not eliminate our characteristic as a  designer. I recently faced this challenge when I was doing a wedding design project, in which  my team and I needed to communicate our design ideas and arguments clearly to the client  for them to be able to picture the design well and reach a final agreement. It was an outdoor  wedding reception, and the client wanted it to be intimate and had a rustic mood whilst still  remained on their budget. I decided to use the visualization tool to overcome this challenge  because I figured that decorating an event venue involves a lot of picturing 3D spaces and  room sequences, and this tool is the best way to avoid misconceptions when communicating  our ideas to the client.

Application

At the early step of designing after getting a short brief of the client’s vision, I composed a  design mood board which consists several wedding decoration images, color palettes and  types of flowers that we are going to use according to the big theme. This mood board really  helps us to communicate with the client regarding their design preferences before we moved  to detailing. Visualizing the design examples by real images and color palettes is proven to be  more effective rather than explaining them by words, because both I and the client were able  to state clearly which are suitable with our ideas, characteristic and budget and which are not.  Once both parties had an agreement on the general theme and mood of the wedding, comes  detailing. This part is quite tricky, since we need to create a visualization as similar as the real- life design outcome that we wanted. For this part, I created a 3D model of the venue, complete  with the decoration elements and flower images that we are going to use in a montage. The  3D model was captured from several pivotal point of views such as the entrance, main stage,  and aisle to let the client experience the design sequence. Besides acting as a visualization  tool for the client, the 3D model also helps us as designer in picturing our design in the venue,  starting from the decoration element’s scale to the compatibility of color moods we have  chosen with the venue. Moreover, the method also helped us designers to assess whether  our design is buildable or not. These practices really help us as designers to give a clear  visualization of our design as a whole, from the beginning until the end.

Insight and Approach

I have learned from applying these practices that visualization tool help create a better  understanding and made it easier for people, especially as designers to align our ideas. The  compilation of design preferences images and 3D models gives the designer and client a focal  point to discuss their perspectives and explore their ideas regarding the design. The  visualization helps simplify the communication process and finding the middle ground for both  parties. Even though the project was a success, I still feel like there are more to explore in  terms of using the visualization tool to present our ideas. I would like to be much more detailed  in my future project’s presentation, so I can maximize the tool to explore and share more  insights.

