Final Project: Integrative Redesign

Redesign a real product's packaging under all six constraints from weeks 2-10 at once, and defend it in week 12's session

Due: 28 May 2027 · Weight: 60%

This is the assignment week 11’s studio built toward and week 12’s Final Defense presented: one real product, redesigned under six constraints held simultaneously, written up and defended.

The brief#

Redesign a real product’s packaging so that it holds flute/board choice, cubic-weight cost, sustainability-claim honesty, returns economics, compliance, and accessible design in tension at once, and argue your trade-offs rather than hide them.

Choose one product currently sold online that isn’t one of this course’s own worked cases. Realistic scope: this is a redesign of packaging, not a new product, a new supply chain, or a rebrand — the six constraints from week 11 are the whole assignment, and a submission that adds scope beyond them (a marketing plan, a manufacturing process redesign) is spending effort the brief doesn’t ask for.

The strongest submissions state plainly which constraint they traded away or downweighted, and why that trade-off was the right call for this specific product — not which constraints they satisfied, since satisfying all six equally well is rarely the honest answer. A submission that claims to have optimised every constraint without cost is more likely to have examined one loosely than solved a genuinely hard problem.

What you submit#

A written redesign document (packaging description or sketches, the real formulas and critiques applied per constraint, and your stated trade-offs), plus your week 12 Final Defense presentation. The written document should read as a standalone account of the redesign — a marker who wasn’t in week 12’s session should be able to follow your reasoning from the page alone, then check it against what you actually defended.