INDN 342: CAD/CAM Techniques

The CAD/CAM technique that I'm looking at utilizing for my project is CNC routing. I think routing has a lot of possibilities and a lot I can glean from it in terms of clever ideas. Unfortunately a lot of the designs that I see using it just use it as a big laser cutter, which in my opinion is a significant shortcoming of what the CNC router is capable of. Utilizing the capabilities of the router, the user is actually able to sculpt the material they decide to use.

Image acquired from: http://pirwi.com/english/Products/field/

You can see why I feel it's a shame that most of the designers on the internet have used the router in a way that doesn't express its capabilities to a full extent. The furniture that people have created is wonderfully beautiful, but it just seems a shame that it hasn't been used in a meaningful way to create new stuff. Utilizing the stacking technique to create pieces of furniture is also an incredibly wasteful process that doesn't actually express the potential of the material. In my mine the material is only a means to an end, and serves out its life as small piece as part of a much larger team of pieces.

Image acquired from: http://www.woodfordtooling.com/craftpro-router-cutters/

These joins on the other hand turn the material into much more interesting pieces of furniture. The expression of what the material is capable of and how it can be made beautiful is actually really pushed here. The skill aspect can be transferred to the machine here, with the pure creation of the design being transferred to the designer. The material variation serves as an aesthetic choice, but also a very functional tool. The join is often a point where a piece of furniture is most likely to fail, and as a result, a lot of different types of strong joins have been developed to compensate.

Image acquired from: http://www.skin-futurematerials.com/case-study/dukta/

Using the inherent properties of the timber as a partially malleable material is a really awesome way of creating a material that transcends its original properties and forms. The new capabilities offer something new, as well as allowing the material to be more interesting aesthetically and physically. The bendiness of the timber is something that goes well beyond what we traditionally associate with timber of that sort. By utilizing the CNC process, the timber now has a new properties that in a dramatic sense, brings it back from the dead.

Images acquired from: http://www.dezeen.com/

This table is a beautiful expression of what the CNC router is capable of. The tables joins highlight a variation in the look of the same material, which is a really interesting aspect. However, the really interesting aspect is the highlighting of the joining process, which is something that is either a particular form (dovetailing, mortise & tenon), or designed to be hidden from view. The highlighting of the joins showcases the precision of the CNC router, and at the same time, doesn't try to impose any sort of shapes onto the CNC process. The CNC process and the cutters used means that sharp internal angles aren't a possible outcome, and the creator of the table has made this a considered design choice. The joins utilise this rounded shape to great effect, and it gives the table a certain character and quirk that it otherwise doesn't really have.

INDN 342: Furniturised!

In order to get my thoughts straight in my head, I need to have a look at some pre-existing pieces of awesome. The research phase of a project is usually where I feel the most or least inspired, not in between. At present I keep cycling between the two. I find that writing about the process and the like in my blog helps a lot though. It lets me structure my thoughts in my head a lot more, and the more I write in my blog, the more work I do, as it gets me into the zone. It's a win-win really, but getting into the blogging can be a little bit tough, and knowing where to start with this project is pretty tricky, as it is so open and vague. We have to develop a piece of furniture that is based off CNC and CAD/CAM processes.

The project itself is fascinating, and looking at exemplars has me spinning with ideas as well as problems I might face. The way I'm dissecting this project in my head turns it into a variety of things. I can see myself designing another light, or going the whole shebang and designing a larger piece of furniture. Either way, what I really want to design is something that I can actually use, rather than it gathering dust in the corner of the room. 

Image acquired from: http://www.heals.co.uk/

This chair is of course the Charles & Ray Eames LCW chair, which is possibly one of the most iconic and most popular bent ply chairs. The chair is simple, curvaceous, comfortable (I've sat on one!) and beautiful. I have my doubts about whether there were any CNC techniques involved, but it's possible the ply could have been CNC cut but would probably be CNC cut nowadays in order to save on time and guarantee precision. The chair has a certain wonderful honesty to it, not attempting to hide any of it's joins, displaying all of its design openly as well as maintaining a truth to materials.

Image acquired from: http://www.davidtrubridge.com/

David Trubridge's Luup table is so totally rad. When you want to order one, you get to choose from a wide variety of colours for every single leg, not just the whole set. I think that's super cool. David's table is really simple and minimal, and the design is also quirky and lightweight, giving a certain amount of fun to the design. The way it's put together is again really honest. The CNC processes here are amazing, because on David's website, when you want to buy one of the tables, it tells you how long it would take for such a table to be manufactured, which is 20 minutes. Not long, eh? I didn't think so either. I'm not 100% sure if that includes the bending process for the metal legs as well, but that's not hugely important. I really like the fact that this table is delivered as a flatpack, and you get to put it together yourself. I'm a huge fan of IKEA (Can you tell?)!

Image acquired from: http://konstantin-grcic.com/

Konstantin Grcic's chairs are really cool. I'm still not sure exactly how they're made, as they present a unique challenge for my me to put together in my mind. I can see how some of the pieces would go together, but I'm not 100% sure if those ways were the chosen ones or even strong enough! Either way, the beautiful angularity of these pieces really endears them to me as quirky pieces of fun as well as serious pieces of gear. The sitting locations on the designs look like they'd be fairly comfortable, but some of the other parts on the designs look a bit harsh! I can imagine the separate components were probably CNC machined to ensure maximum accuracy. Still not sure how the pieces are joined though!

Image acquired from: http://www.bouroullec.com/

The Bouroullec Brothers designed these awesome chairs. I don't know if they spin or not, and I really want to find out. Initial look at them doesn't suggest they would, but you never know, there might be some sneaky ball bearings tucked away in that bottom wooden shaft. The rods would definitely have been CNC bent, as the accuracy on those would have been fairly difficult to get right otherwise. CNC rod bending is definitely a process that I think I'd like to use, as it doesn't seem to be too expensive or time-consuming as a CNC process, plus the yielded results can be stunning. There are a few other pieces of furniture that I really like that utilise a similar process.

Image acquired from: http://www.designboom.com/

These stools are stunning. When I first saw them on DesignBoom, I think I fell in love a little bit. The stool just has such a beautiful synergy between the materials, as well as between the colours. The black just works so nicely with the colour and innate texture of the timber.The key part of the design is of course the wire form that snakes between the legs of the stool, creating a variety of different leg heights, depending on how you rotate the stool. I think the notion of creating an asymmetrical design is a very clever one, and really explores the way we express a particular use through the forms we use.

INDN 312: Brand Research: Apple, POC, Dyson, Muji

To think about how the scenarios that we're going to develop, one of the considerations that I need to take into account is the different companies mentioned in the brief, and how they actually convey their brand's identities and the way they present their products. One of the important aspects of a brand in today's market is the ability to cultivate a certain culture around themselves as well as generate a certain image that can be conjured at any time by a consumer looking at their brand.

The four companies that I'm tasked with taking a closer look at are POC (A Swedish adventure wear company), Apple (An American multinational consumer electronics company), Dyson (A British household electronics company), and Muji (A Japanese household and consumer goods company).

POC

Image acquired from: http://www.pocsports.com/

POC is a Swedish corporation that designs adventure and sporting wear for a variety of activities. As well as making beautiful and well designed gear, they also push the limits in terms of material usage as well as material research. The brand has been endorsed by a large number of athletes, and as such prides itself and bases it's image on being at the forefront of adventure wear design and technology. The technological advances are mostly in material research as well as fittings and comfort, and while most of the gear POC develops in terms of types is fairly standard, there are a good deal of products that are very unique and serve purposes and needs beyond that of the average adventure sports person.

POC's aesthetic is texture and pattern low, relying instead on block colours and large sections of colour to drive the unifying design aesthetic. Since the company is responsible for developing clothing, a very standard way of displaying one's personality, the company sells products in a very large range of colours. The one-size-fits all mantra cannot be found, although anything that you buy would very definitively be "designed by POC". The brand's logo is to be found on everything, and it certainly isn't always discreet. The brand uses a futuristic sort of style to it's products, and this style works well to underpin the brand's value set.

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Apple

Image acquired from: https://www.apple.com/ipad/

Apple is a very familiar company for any industrial design student, as go to any lecture and you'll be guaranteed to see an Apple MacBook out on someone's table. Apple's consumer electronics division is huge. They have received a host of both negative and positive critiques for their design styles as well as their design choices. Advertising is a huge aspect of what makes Apple Apple. Employing a vast array of emotionally manipulative techniques in it's advertising and PR, Apple has firmly cemented it's position as the brand of designer electronic devices to own.

Utilising excellently minimal design choices for the majority of their products, the Apple brand is something that isn't conveyed through logos, but through an extremely distinctive look. Their current primary choice for materials is brushed aluminium and polished glass, with several other materials coming in in certain situations and products as backups. Apple's brand has been so aggressively marketed that certain products of theirs are now synonymous with that type of product. An iPod is now synonymous with an mp3 player. Apple makes a lot of highly considered material choices, as well as aggressive development into efficient material usage and electronic consideration.

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Dyson

Image acquired from: http://www.dyson.co.uk/vacuum-cleaners.aspx

Dyson is a brand that manufactures and designs vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, blade-less fans, and heaters. The company prides itself extensively on it's founding, whereby James Dyson developed the original Dyson bag-less vacuum cleaner after extensive iteration into a workable product. The company uses this story as a basis for their design identity, but primarily the company looks at creating products that work in different or better ways than their competitors or predecessors.

Dyson has created an identity that presents their products as the ultimate expressions of their development. With the company being primarily an engineering company, the design of the unique vacuums have presented a very interesting design challenge to the company. While other household electronics designers attempt to hide the products and the way they work, Dyson seeks to exemplify and highlight the mechanics and functionality of their products, by using both strong colours and interesting forms.

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Muji

Image acquired from: http://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?Sec=19

Muji is a Japanese company that expresses it's identity by being a brand that has no distinguishing brand. The goods it sells are designed to be quality goods without being excessively branded or extremely distinctively designed. The products are designs with a minimalistic style in mind, as well as encouraging recycling and avoiding waste in product manufacturing and packaging. This no-brand attitude is a very interesting one, as it immediately seeks to position Muji as a brand that is just great as well as being reasonably priced without being dominated by a particular identity or logo.

Muji is in a way also a blanket brand that occupies multiple different types of products. The distinction that separates it from other brands is merely in terms of the products being well designed, and yet this lack of distinction is a key importance for making sure that people feel they can buy everything Muji without everything looking identical. In that regard, I find the concept similar to Ikea. There is a unifying aesthetic, but it doesn't overtone everything else.

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INDN 312: Brand & Identity

The project that we're presented with in this new course is to look at using new technologies to add value and to promote NZ resources, in the global marketplace. This has the potential to sound a little bit wishy-washy, but I think that it holds significant interest, and the technologies that we might get to use sound exceedingly interesting. The way the project is structured is that it is laid out in two ways, allowing for two different paths a student can take to develop a project.

The nature of the project is very much up to us, but we have to involve the respective technology of one of the different branches we get to pursue. The two different scenarios we get to choose from involve two different types of technologies, each amazing and very interesting in their own right.

Image acquired from: http://www.scionresearch.com/impact/wood-fibre/investment-in-bioplastics-pays-off

The first technology or set of technologies is a large mass of research being done by Scion, a biomaterials research facility that is making really interesting forays into the area of wood-fibre enhanced plastics, allowing for them to be strengthened as well as having some really interesting properties. The interest factor fer me behind this set of possibilities is what might be possible with them. Apparently Scion has figured out how to extrude the materials into some really interesting shapes, as well as 3D-printing filament, which is one of the things that possibly at this point has the most potential for me.

Image acquired from: http://stretchsense.com/

The second technology that we'll be hearing more about tomorrow is called StretchSense, a wireless stretchable sensor setup that can work via Bluetooth with mobile phones and computers, and has a still-not-entirely-known potential uses. Supposedly the sensors are able to tell how much they have been stretched, allowing for measuring the human body, as well as small-scale robotics and other projects.

Both sets of technologies have lots of potential, and both I can see interesting and innovative uses for, however, this project is quite specific in the way that it allows us to approach it, as it calls for us to investigate and develop our projects with New Zealand and the NZ identity specifically in mind. The result of this is that depending on which scenario I choose to pursue, I have to seek to add value and promote NZ resources through either looking at NZ culture or NZ commodities.

Image acquired from: http://www.mch.govt.nz/

Looking at NZ culture I have to consider how my project might apply to the present NZ fashion trends, or perhaps how it might relate to our identity as an arts-and-craftsy nation. It could also look at the intertwining of many cultures, considering how the project might appropriate all of these cultures or develop their ties. New Zealand has a certain identity when it comes to our lifestyle, and this could also be something that the Scion research applies to, as well as considering how research like that might fit in around this 100% green (total bullshit) national identity we've built around ourselves.

Image acquired from: http://static2.stuff.co.nz/

The NZ commodities angle looks at how NZ is defined by the commodities that we produce. Certain materials and goods shape our national identity, and allow us to have a distinctive individuality. A lot of materials and commodities have a certain cultural and historical heritage, such as flax (Maori culture) and wool (European culture). These materials, when used appropriately, can be distinctly New Zealand. The exports that drive our economy identify us in the global marketplace, while the distinctive material identify us through slightly more cultural means.