[de]sein

ok. so i know that it’s annoying, but i’m going to fill you in on the past 2 months all in one shot. we’ll start with some sketch models. i decided to make some tables and i went through numerous designs before i decided on the final ones. here is a selection.

this is the very first square table that i made. quite intricate.

next i tried simplifying things a bit.

then i went back to getting a little crazy. the top of this one is based on a map of the san francisco bay.

then i decided to go for more of a rectangle table that would comfortably seat 4.

here you can see the dining table with the coffee table that i had planned.

then i went through some color explorations trying to decide what the final ones might look like. i decided to keep them just straight up black and white.

i wasn’t thrilled with the black table, white inlay look, and then i realized that with the construction methods i was using, i could actually do some veneer.

in the next post i’ll get to actual construction of the pieces.

hey kids, sorry about the big gap here. someone stole the internet from my house and i’m still waiting to here back whether my renters insurance covers it. i just hope its okay. until i get that figured out, i have to wait on the opportunities where i can bring my laptop into work. and i don’t know about you, but carrying around my $1000 laptop in my neck of the woods is not exactly exciting. so you’re going to have to take what you can get from here on in. all apologies. so enjoy the new/old shit.

last weekend mark fifield married lindsay nee feus in savannah. me and matt and rob drove down. many good times were had. here are pictures that possibly came from said good times, but i can’t be sure.

i am very happy about this picture of matty. it may be the best one i’ve taken of him. other than the nudes of course.

i also thought that maybe people may ‘get’ the negative chairs a little better if they could see them at an appropriate table. and thus:

this design is definitely still in small model stage. i hope to have to fully fleshed out and ready to roll out by my show in january. speaking of which, i have a show in january.

i also may change the table i make from a 6 person to more of a 4 person square breakfast nook / card table size thing. seems to be the smart marketing move.

i decided to paint the insides of my negative chairs. here is what they may or may not look like.

and yes, that is magenta….

and yes, it is in fact impossibly awesome.

i may just do all four in white.

Jont - n. - possibly derived from ‘joint’
an all encompassing pronoun. can be used in place of any place or thing, sometimes even people.
Ex.- ‘Hand me that jont right there.’

Jack - n.
A cigarette

Moe - pers. pron. -
Used to refer to anyone, generally when speaking to them.
Ex. - ‘Hey moe, let me hit that jack.’

Joe - see ‘Moe’

Woot, woot, woot - ?
Used in place of insignificant dialogue. Similar to ‘yada, yada, yada’ or ‘blah, blah, blah’, but slightly more positively biased.
Ex. - ‘I was talking to this girl and i was like woot, woot, woot.’

Yeah -
Similar to ‘woot, woot, woot’ but used more in place of states of being rather than dialogue.
Ex. - ‘I was talking to this girl and i was like woot, woot, woot, and she was yeah.’

Whomp - int. - thought to derive from comic books or cartoons
Used to negate anything the user of ‘WHOMP!’ doesn’t agree with. Note: must be delivered with force. Ideal usage begins before the opposing side has finished their sentence.
Ex. - Me - ‘Tyrone, can you help….?’
Tyrone - ‘WHOMP!’

Yooooooooooo - int. - derivation unknown
Strikingly similar to WHOMP! Same usage rules.
Ex. - Me - ‘Tyrone, those are the ugliest pants I’ve….’
Tyrone - ‘YOOOOOOO! I look like a rockstar in these jonts!’

what do you think of this tattoo?

recently i’ve been thinking a lot about personal fabrication. this comes from watching these TED talks by neil gershenfeld and saul griffith (if you’ve never seen any of the TED talks, please watch some). how can we design things that can be made almost instantaneously and fairly easily? are there methods of making that lend themselves to small runs of things where every single piece is different, but the tenth off the line is just as easy to design and assemble as the first? i’m beginning to think about how generative computer design can be utilized for this, but first i have to do some experiments on how the physical object can actually happen, and then figure out the coding behind it (sort of the nature of the beast at this point, i’d rather have it the other way around (design the theory first, then figure out how to make it), but i’m not writing a thesis here, i’m trying to make some cool stuff). i feel like this post may be losing a lot of my audience, so why don’t i just show you guys some fun pictures, huh?

the first experiment i did was using folding. this is an icosahedron made from duralar using tab and slot connections.

what i realized from this model is that in order to make any sort of decent sized object, the surface area is going to be fairly large. meaning that a)i can only make small objects or b)i need a larger laser engraver. both of these options don’t appeal to me, so i tried to see the potential of making each polygon a discrete element. and i got this.

here’s the same object split into two ‘bowls’.

and here’s the ‘ball’ with a light inside.

a good start. and more to come later.

last night i went to an opening at honfleur for a show called gesture. an artist created a brick-sized painting for the every one of the almost 3,000 lives lost on 9/11. while i can’t say that i loved the individual images or imagery, the impact of the piece was forceful. as soon as you walked into the gallery you sensed the size of the impact of that day as almost every square inch of wall space in the gallery was covered. and you began to imagine the dozens and hundreds of other lives connected and effected by the loss of each of these.

the show was loosely split up into four or five base color palettes. this picture shows the transitions between the colors.

my favorite part of the show i couldn’t get a good picture of. all of the paintings are done on cellophane so that the artist could lay down large sections of background colors, cut them up, and then paint on the opposite side, basically allowing paint on both sides of the ‘canvas’. but because of the shininess of the material, each piece reflected the gallery lights onto the floor creating beautiful light patterns on the floor. it reminded me very much of light reflecting off of or light passing through water. another example of the unintended beauty of the things we create.

in the past couple of weeks i’ve recognized the sad state of my bag. the duct tape continually puts a sticky residue on my laptop, a majority of the pockets have holes, and the velcro has come almost completely detached. this, along with the high prices of nice messenger bags and lack of availability of cheap, cool versions, i began to investigate how i might make my own. thusly, i stumbled upon this. it’s a guy who took old vinyl signs and made them into bags. and the coolest thing is that he’s put his designs out with a creative commons license so if you want to make one for yourself, everything is cool, if you want to make some to sell using his design, you have to get his permission or pay him. seeing as how it’s just for me, i procured myself a vinyl sign (if you happen to recognize this logo, i don’t know what you’re talking about) and got to it.

the bag he designed was fairly large. larger than i needed so i shrank it down a bit, but used a lot of the same dimensions. and here’s what i got.

judging by the post title you may have already guessed that i sewed this by hand. and no, i did not have a thimble. but i now understand how one might really be nice. my fingertips are still sore.

there are a few details that i still need to do. i would also like to change the strap and how it is connected to the bag. for this one i just scavenged the strap and d-rings from my old bag. i would like to perhaps use a grommet to clip to, or perhaps something else. anyway, i wore it to work yesterday and it worked fine. it was nice and light, and without so many pockets i don’t feel a need to fill it up with junk.