!Update to Part 2: It seems like the “Shelter Screen” was carried on into the final rounds for ICFF. See below.

As SCAD students of the Designed Conversation course created different bedding solutions for the clients of Growing Hope of Union Mission, one of the most challenging problems was a structure that actually provided shelter for the homeless living on the street.

This was the prototype presented at the end of April during critique. The canvas slip cover fits over a standard bi-folding lawn chair. Inside the flap was a layer of tulle to represent mosquito netting. There were conversations about how to secure the flap while preventing liquid from dripping inside, how to make the netting functional and convenient, and how to transport the entire structure on one’s back.

Above, a student demonstrates the room within the structure and possible issues with not being able to sit up.

It seems that a more dome-like silhouette was the group’s solution. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see this prototype, but it looks like the project really came together for ICFF.

At the end of the critique, I sat down with each groups “documentarians.” Rubi McGrory, a Graduate Fibers student, Alice Meiss and Kathleen Imig, both undergraduates in Fibers, were responsible for documenting the process of their groups, collaborating on the mission statement, and putting together the site for Designed Conversation.

(more…)

Share This

Good old Etsy is a massive market place for all things ‘hand made’. Now the concept of the hand can be stretched to the hand that operates the mouse, that designs the product, that clicks send, that, well, uses Ponoko..

Anyway, Soop is a London based design studio headed by top chef Wai-Lian Scannell. She’s forever rustling up new recipes in the Soop kitchen (literally). You can sample a few flavours in Soop’s Etsy shop. In this instance the result is super cute jewellery that can be combined (see customized) to make your very own farmyard scene on your finger.

And while at Etsy check out this, Object

What_
A geometric entity to occupy a desk, a shelf or any space in your life. Balances on several faces.
So the outer casing is made out of recycled cardboard coated in beeswax. The beeswax adds strength as well as a pleasant smell. The underside has two wells, both filled with a swatch of moss.
Why_
A stress reliever, something nice to look at and touch, or a little bit of the outside when you are stuck inside.

ok

Soop Found via Josh Spear

Share This

The interdisciplinary course Designed Conversation at Savannah College of Art and Design started around a competition sponsored by the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

“Given departmental emphasis on community outreach and, increasingly, small-scale production, fibers program members explore conscientious design and sustainable, socially responsible studio practice as a matter of course. For the past two years, the program has worked with the Growing Hope Artisans Cooperative, which provides creative programming for the homeless. This year, fibers students are delving into the issue of bedding for Growing Hope clients. Issues confronting the students include the relationship of inside/outside, portability, and the difference between consumer-driven and community-oriented products.”

-from the ICFF announcement

The last post Front and Center: Designed Conversation at ICFF (Part1) covered a product concept for people in transitional housing. This post covers the second prototype that focuses on the needs of individuals living in shelters. When I attended the final critique, the prototype looked like a three panel room divider with fabric pockets.

Each fabric panel was 15 inches wide and attached to pvc pipe. The idea was to use found materials to create pockets at different heights of the panels for those sleeping on the top or bottom bunk. The screen would provide storage as well as privacy. Issues arose at this last critique on the construction around the stitched sleeves of the panels, the stability of the light weight pvc, as well as the inconvenience of repositioning the screen in order to climb on the top bunk. The students must have seriously evaluated these issues, because less than two weeks later their prototype looked like this.

Storage is given precedent with an expandable shelf, as opposed to fabric pockets. Contents can be kept out of sight, and there is a fold out shelf.

These are the latest photographs I have of the prototype, but Fibers professor Jessica Smith reported that the final prototype for ICFF incorporates over 10 yards of digitally printed polyester.
Here’s the front of their promo card. Return tomorrow for coverage of the final design which offers a sleeping solution for men and women who must live on the street and a few words from the students reflecting on how this project has affected them as designers and as people.

Share This

I happened across a new project to me while browsing the archives: Chumby was mentioned alongside Ponoko in an article in the New York Times back in November.

As the website says:

“The chumby is a compact device that displays useful and entertaining information from the web: news, photos, music, weather, celebrity gossip, webcams, sports scores — using your wireless internet connection”

The interesting thing to me is the extent of its open design: This section of their site is devoted to developers and offers resources for four areas of development: Hardware, software, widgets and crafts. The crafts page offers such delights as the patterns for the fabric elements of the housing, plus IGES files (that is, 3D CAD models) and engineering drawings for all the plastic moulded and metal parts used in the housing. Developers are encouraged and facilitated to modify the design as they wish. All you need is a 3D rapid prototyper! However there is some interesting discussion of more feasible options for creating your own casings on their forum here.

Interestingly, you don’t have to agree to anything to make use of the craft resources, but must click an agreement for access to their hardware (electronics) resources, such as schematics and PCB layouts. This agreement limits you from manufacturing and selling Chumby branded devices, but states; “Our goal is to give our Licensees latitude to modify their Chumby Devices and the Chumby software that runs on them, while preserving our business of running the Chumby Service”. Which seems fair enough.

Still, great opportunity here for any crafters/makers to get involved. Would be cool to see a laser cut variant!

Images from Chumbyfriends on Flickr

Share This

Boingboingtv has a good video up in which Phil Torrone, editor of Make magazine, shows us some of his favourite projects from Maker Faire 2008 last weekend. These include soft toy electronics, ‘fablabs’ and the “brain machine”. Phil comments a little on the links between the maker movement, the affordablilty of digital fabrication, and the future of product personalisation.

Its good to get a little insight into the goings on at Maker Faire when I’m stuck over on this side of the atlantic - there’s such a vibrant network of makers out there, hopefully one day I’ll be able to attend a Maker faire myself!

Update:

There’s also an interesting perspective from the businessmen at Forbes.com here. Some chat with Make magazine, Bleep Labs and Mitch Altman on the reasoning behind DIY product success stories. The emphasis on the need for building a product community and sharing (and thus flexible licensing I surmise) is interesting.

Share This

Nutre Arayavanish is a jeweller whose jewellery is informed by her interest in owner involvement.

She recently won the numbers of prestigious awards such as New Designer of the Year 2007 from the Business Design Center and Jewellery Designer of The Year 2007 (Student Category) from British Jewellers’ Assiciation (BJA). She explores the relationship between two-dimensional pattern and three-dimensional object, also the relationship between maker, jewellery and wearer in order to encourage the wearer to engage more with the piece apart from wearing them. The public perception or reaction to the jewellery when presented to them in different states of existence and brings new experience to wearers and viewers, and a new level of dimension to jewellery wearing.

Postable Jewellery is the spacial way of communication. It is a jewellery that can be send through mailbox, like a postcard. It is a flat-pack ring, assemble by slotting each components together. Presenting itself as a card and a gift, it can be a perfect present for any occasions.

available at magma books
What a perfect way to use Ponoko. By combining flat pack jewellery like this and laser etching you could design a business card that assembled into a piece of jewellery, what a great way to woo a potential client…..
Found via our buddy Josh Spear

Share This

Designed Conversation is a special topics course at the Savannah College of Art and Design. This Spring, a divergent group of students from the Fibers and Furniture departments came together under the direction of professors Jessica Smith and Sheila Edwards to collaborate on a proposal for this year’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair. I had the honor of attending the final prototype critique and interviewing a few students about the project.

“Designed Conversation represents a dynamic dialogue between Savannah College of Art and Design students and clients of Growing Hope of Union Mission in Savannah, Georgia. Union Mission aims to elevate the quality of life of Savannah’s homeless through housing, job training, counseling, and healthcare. Growing Hope, the arts and crafts cooperative within Union Mission, is a unique program which addresses the need for creative expression in this underserved population. Our goal is to create sustainable bedding solutions for people in non-traditional living situations. We address the needs of three specific demographics within Union Mission: those sleeping on the street, those sleeping in a shelter, and those living in transitional housing.

Through regular conversations at the shelter, our clients expressed their needs for comfort, security and privacy which we continuously integrated into our design solutions. We embrace a definition of sustainability looking beyond the green movement to incorporate a socially constructive practice. Using readily accessible materials and an ease of construction, we created functional items that can be replicated by clients within the Growing Hope Studios. In giving the design blueprints to Growing Hope and posting them on the internet, we aim to give our products a life in the community beyond ICFF.”

:: mission statement

This first post presents the work of the group that addresses those in transitional housing programs. Because physical shelter is provided, the primary needs are personal and psychological. Below, are the sleeping arrangements the students visited.

These “bed pods” were developed to provide privacy and a sense of ownership and control over limited personal space. The canopy like structure is secured to the bottom of the bed frame by simple straps and suspender clips. The pod can be folded back and snapped shut to signify that this person has left the dormitory and begun their day. Extended, the pod provides shade from the typical overhead florescent lighting, privacy from fellow housemates, as well as some storage. There are pockets on either side of the interior for small personal items. It’s light weight and compactability make it portable, due to it’s construction of fiberglass rods and basic fabric. I think it’s a very good way to begin to establish individualized space and a healthy sense of independence.

Here’s the final version to be presented at ICFF.

And here, clients of Growing Hope of Union Mission look at the prototype.

coming soon. Front and Center: Designed Conversation at ICFF (part 2) - a storage solution for shelters

Share This

It’s interesting how the indie design community respond so well to competitions: Clearly, we need briefs to flourish, we need constraints. The response to last month’s Ponoko competition is a case in point. So it’s no surprise that brands keep hurling them at us.
Doc Marten’s is one of the latest with their Freedm campaign, a website that allows you to decorate your own Doc Marten’s boot with the chance of having your design made up for sale (via Core77). This is one of many similarly enticing yet constrictive competitions in which getting your entry manufactured is still ultimately down to chance. At least customisation frameworks such as those offered by Nike, Etnies, and Timbuk2 guarantee some return on your investment of design time and effort, and some offer more freedom.

The cynical side of me sees these competitions as, at worst, simply an attempt by brands to get a lot of ideas for virtually no effort or cost. At best, they might be a means of gaining publicity by jumping on the DIY/open design bandwagon. But maybe they’re genuinely part of the movement and a necessary framework for indie designers to work within. However, if this is the case, it would still be nice to have more opportunity to recover some expenses than relying on the chance that one is going to win. How can we stop ourselves being exploited like this?

I suspect the answer is that these competitions and services are really aimed at facilitating design by the ‘non-designers’ discussed by Dave here. For more experienced designers, brand-led competitions such as the Muji design award, attract a great deal of interest, presumably because the briefs are so much wider open. Still, surely our time would be better spent directed towards projects that have more grassroots social impact, or that we at least have the means of building or marketing ourselves, such as those found on Thinkcycle? Sadly, this repository (and others) of collaborative, appropriate design, that offers the same reward of having one’s designs become reality, has been significantly less subscribed to.

It seems we relish constraints, while demanding a certain minimum of freedom, and the balance between these determines to what extent we are designers or ‘non-designers’. However, whichever we are, it seems that we are ultimately mostly interested in prestige.

Share This

Now it may just be me, but when I see an option to turn kids sketches into a 3D stuffed toy, I think, ‘Do you reckon they would realize if I sent in a drawing of _ _ _ _ _ _ ?”

No, O.K.

Then following on from Indigo’s post on Xoddo

You can buy a Monster Design Kit for $249 (yes, I know) and they will send you the Make-My-Own-Monster Design Kit, that includes colored pencils, paper, and a detailed questionnaire. With this kit you create not only what the monster looks like, but you also create a story about the monster and describe his or her personality.
Once you’ve completed the kit and sent it in, the designers at North American Bear Co. will faithfully reproduce your design as a plush monster, including a descriptive hang-tag that tells the story of your monster as you have described it and identifies you as the creator.

Have you ever noticed that dogs look like their owners?

See any similarities here?

Or there is always Stuff Your Doodles
Stuff Your Doodles makes bespoke soft toys using a doodle as the design. It is recreated with recycled materials, stuffed and sent back to you. Prices start at £50.

Found via Trend Hunter

Share This

I found a tutorial that might interest all the DIY people. It’s on how to bend acrylic at hack a day. It shows you how to build your own acrylic bender which apparently is normally a $200 piece of equipment. You just need to get a hold of a heating element and then it looks fairly easy to build the bender. Or if you prefer you can use the heat gun method.

Which ever method you choose bending acrylic can give you a few more options for your ponoko designs. It opens up a whole new world of bendy forms. For example take a look at this heat formed occasional table by Afid design. It’s made from one piece of acrylic that is bent into this beautiful sculptural piece. It comes in your choice of three or four legs and a variety of colours. The wood version of the table is stunning as well.

Happy bending!

Share This