Desk Organizer

By nature, I’m not the world’s most organized person. My desk usually looks like a big pile of papers and I always find once-important papers shoved into the backs of the drawers. So, when I was assigned to create a product that would help me be more organized in my workspace, I was… hesitant. I’ve tried putting things away in bookshelves, or shoving things into drawers and it always just seems to take up space or hide papers that I want to look at.

While I was thinking about what type of organizer might work for me, I got to practicing my perspective sketching so that I would be ready to draw out my ideas that were currently ~marinating~.

I worked on 1-, 2- and even 3-point perspective — here are some of my practice sketches:

Next, I was ready to start sketching out ideas. My items to organize were: laptop, notebook, pen, and phone; I had 3 main directions I was considering:

1. For the first direction, I sketched out a desk organizer that was centered around the laptop. This was my most user-focused design, as the whole thing was designed to be integrated into a working experience.
2. The second direction was more focused on minimizing the space that the actual product took up by designing legs that could fold flat. This would be nice for the user if they wanted to store the organizer, but mainly nice for the retail stores who would have this product on their shelves, as it would use the least amount of their precious space for other products as well. However, there was a risk that it could be rickety during actual use — depending on how the legs were designed. In addition, the table’s lack of slant means that it’s not necessarily the most convenient to use. Overall, this design was the most focused on retail-ability.
3. For the third option, I wanted to go even more minimalistic, and opted for an upright bookshelf-type feel. This would not be involved in the user’s working experience, but it would be a really compact way to store all their working materials when not in use. This design was the most focused on user storage.

After looking over these ideas, I decided that I wanted to try making direction #1 first. I thought about this by taking myself to be the costumer and asking, which design would I want to use the most? Personally, I’ve always wanted to get a laptop stand but I didn’t want to pay money for it so, perfect opportunity!

Here was my initial prototype: