A Grandmother with Visual Impairment Leads UC Student to Winning Designs

Amanda Bolton remembers the evening her grandmother went to brush her teeth and accidentally used Bengay instead of toothpaste.

Recalls Bolton, now 24 and working at Design Central near Columbus, Ohio, “It was this ‘a-ha’ moment. Grandma, like most people who suffer blindness, had lost the vision she once had. So she couldn’t read Braille, but she could use intuitive and simple tactile cues to help her day to day.”

So, Bolton, then a student in the University of Cincinnati’s nationally

number-one ranked industrial design program

, decided that her 2013 senior project would help provide the cues her grandmother needed. And the result, now called B-PAC Kitchenware, recently tied for first place in a student design contest sponsored by the International Housewares Association (IHA).

That win earned Bolton, originally from Milford, Ohio, and a graduate of Milford High School, $2,500 in prize money (which she has put toward patenting her work) and the chance to show her work to the 60,000 visitors who attended the recent IHA 2014 International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago.

Bolton decided to focus on creating designs for use in the kitchen after spending three days blindfolded during her final term in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) as a means of better understanding the experiences of those with vision impairment. She created:

•  A silicone collar or pot guard that snaps onto a standard pot to prevent the blind from experiencing burns when checking on cooking food. When flipped down, the collar protects hands from hot surfaces. In its extended position, the guard also guides and contains food poured from a pan in order to prevent spillage.

•  A measuring cup that pops out buttons to indicate quantity as it is filled.

•  Lids on food-storage containers feature embossed shapes indicating contents and date of storage.

Bolton actually first came to UC as a fine arts student interested in sculpture and wanting to work on human prosthetics. But once she arrived at DAAP, she says, “I fell in love with product design and applied to industrial design program.”

And she’s still in love with the profession, stating, “The most rewarding thing about industrial design is that, rarely, will you design something for yourself. It will always be for someone else. Passion and empathy spliced with design is what makes for a good product.”

As a student, Bolton learned a lot while participating in the university’s top-ranked cooperative education program. On her required

co-op

terms, she worked for the Procter &  Gamble Company, Johnson & Johnson, Identity Works, Inc., the Live Well Collaborative, and Jack Rouse Associates.

In her current role with Design Central, she’s focusing on “work, work and more work. Right now, just like with my co-ops, I’m soaking up all opportunities and knowledge I can about the industry.”

Her grandmother, who has since passed away, would be proud.

• See the number-one national ranking earned by UC’s industrial design program.

• Apply to UC’s undergraduate industrial design program.