Preliminary Rhino3D models of my flatware set. Still working on the getting the spoon correct, this is the first one that doesn't look like a peanut has been carved out of it.

Bodum Flatware!

The sketches for my brand identity project! We chose a company to do a brand analysis for. Once that was done, we chose a product line to introduce to their family of objects. I chose Bodum, and I wanted to apply their aesthetic to flatware.






This is the set I'm going to produce. I took the very iconic form of the handle style Bodum uses for their coffee presses and extruded it. I've also brought in the hardware used on those products. It's sort of the reverse of those open air flatware that's out there. The material choices: aluminum and black acrylic, but I will paint foam to look like aluminum because I don't want to spend so much money on an appearance model if these won't get kept out for display.

Proud and Flow

Every form falls on the spectrum of Proud or Flow. Proud being composed of geometric, static, regular, angular and bulky forms, while Flow is more organic, slender, and dynamic. So it's a great exercise in emotive form with the bonus of seeing which end of the spectrum your aesthetic falls. This has been the assignment given to every Studio 1 class for at least four years.

My class did not do Proud and Flow. We did Historical Forms instead, but there were a lot of Proud and Flow forms anyway. The way Historical Forms work is that each person in the class was given a decade to derive themes from, and then to manifest those themes into a three dimensional sculpture.

I had the 1980s. I was disappointed with my assignment at first (Reagan, mauve, and shoulder pads, really), but I got really into it during the research phase. The themes I came up with were Bravado and Insecurity.


Bravado
The 80s mainstream culture was all about Machismo. In fashion, there were masculine silhouettes everywhere, most notably through shoulder pads. Ralph Lauren got his start by selling that sporty look to non-athletes. The Armani power suit was the must have outfit for the corporate climber. Everything was an expression of power and competence. Here I've tried to incorporate that silhouette while maintaining that 80s prismatic aesthetic.


Insecurity
The flip side of Bravado is Insecurity. Because the country had the looming threat of Communism, the highest unemployment rate since the great Depression (or until recently), and the Savings and Loans fall out, it was natural not to feel confident about the nation's future. I looked at forms in nature for inspiration. In forms that have a protective function in nature (shells and horns) the spiral occurs frequently. In fact, the ultimate act of insecurity for a human being is to curl up into the fetal position. From the front, it's that very dramatic V-shape silhouette, and from its profile, you get the spiral shape. This is my favorite of the two because of the pathos that people who interacted with it showed.


From certain angles, it has a really playful form. Like a dog or a cat that wants a belly rub.



This project was a lot of fun, even if I'm not the best at making physical models.

Fall Quarter Summary

This was the quarter where I learned about graphic design. If it's true that the head of the department hauled ass to remove any traditional graphic design courses from the curriculum, then Human Factors is the unofficial graphic design class for Industrial Design. What I've been up to:

Anthropometry Study:

I was trying to channel subway map layouts with little success. This was full of novice mistakes like forgetting to line up the elements and not making good use of space. I was really happy with it when I first finished but now I am of a different opinion.

Anatomy Study:

There are elements from both the first draft and the final that I like. I like the tabs in the first one, but I liked the economy of space of the second one more.

Final Ergonomic Study:

This could probably use more tweaking but for now I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Contextual Research is another course where I spent more time in front of the computer than in the shop:

Flow Model:

This was easily ten hours, not including field research. I remember refusing to put any content in it until I figured out how I would style everything. That attitude resulted in so many hours pissed away just picking out the fonts.

Survey Project:


I tend to lean towards simple layouts with clean graphics. Right now everything I do feels pretty plain, so in the future I want to try to avoid flat colors and simple shapes.

Some Sketches

I feel like embarrassing myself into improving, so here are some sketches that normally hide in the deep dark crevices of my sketchbook



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People with styles I love:
Michael Ditullo: Especially this power drill

Kimberly Wu: Beautiful renderings, even if they are of concept cars.
Chris Kujawski: Several different product designs, lots of sketches.

My Beef with Concept Cars

Concept cars remind me vaguely of mary-sue fanfiction. They aren't tied to reality, they're obscenely perfect, and they're an excercise in crazy fantasy fulfillment for the mind responsible for it.

Let's talk smack about the grasshopper concept car that core77 has linked to. The comments tear this idea apart, saying it's not revolutionary in anyway, that it's all been done before, that the only thing remarkable about it is it's inspiration. But even that isn't all that original.


The Wasp



The Ladybug



The Beetle

Nothing futuristic about it.

TV B Gone

Becky Stern posted an entry about her TV B Gone zip hoodie in craft magazine's blog. Much finger wagging followed. The idea of having an inconspicuous gesture like zipping your hoodie control something else is interesting, and something that might inspire me later. However, I do agree with a lot of the stuffy lectures in the comments.

I wish the project had been presented as a device for a pretty innocent lark, instead of presenting it as a magic morality wand. It's fun and it's clever, but it's still not a very mature thing to do, and probably won't accomplish what it was created for in the first place. Take the offered restaurant scenario. The television is turned off, confuses the owner/host/hostess/whatever, and they turn the television back on. This goes back and forth until someone grows bored and frustrated. If it's the restaurant owner, they may be concerned about their malfunctioning TV and spend lots of money either getting a new one, or trying to get it repaired when it's not necessary. The original purpose of the hoodie isn't realized and all that effort and ingenuity is wasted.

Besides, a plastic box with wires that displays images and makes noise isn't inherently evil or obnoxious. So the problem must be the content. Maybe you hate how media giants control information, or think sports represent oppression by the male population, or whatever. Hoping owners will understand your ambiguous and anonymous actions isn't the best way to get what you want.

Can you imagine a flock of politically aware twenty-somethings, angrily zipping their hoodies up and down outside a convention hall, in protest? Zip-wankers.