Lamp Post

Having failed to incorporate repurposed or recycled materials into my stool, I decided to focus on designing around this parameter for the lamp assignment.

I was struck by a number of designs that incorporated reused materials, including the three below:

stoplight, ping pong balls, cup holder crates

My lamp research also illuminated my preference for exposed bulbs and interesting ways to use bulbs as a structural element. Here are a few of my favorites along this theme.

My first several thrift store visits in search of materials yielded only a simple wire frame stand and a round glass vase. I drilled a hole through the base of the frame through which to wire the lamp and was hoping to attach the vase to the stand with some sort of frame structure.

This first approach was inspired in part by a series of lamps in the steam punk style that Noah sent our way (pictured below).

thanks frank buchwald

Unfortunately, after two unsuccessful trips to Vercesi Hardware and an awkward attempt to bend a metal wreath hanger into a support frame, I was feeling uninspired by this design.

There was a brief bit of hope for this design when my roommate suggested that I flip the frame over to create a hanging lamp. The frame was indeed much more interesting when inverted, but I was still feeling unsure about this approach.

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In the meantime, I came upon another neat lamp design by Egg Collective in which bare bulbs were attached to large stumps of wood:

I thought this design was beautiful and hoped to mimic its simplicity by attaching a bulb to an interesting found object. I came upon an awesome antique shop while walking home one day and found a broken box camera that I thought could make for an excellent lamp. Conveniently, the film winding mechanism and film viewing holes at the rear of the camera provided great locations to install the push switch and to wire the cord.

So, here it is!

the original

on / off

guts

A pretty simple design, but I think it accomplished my objectives of incorporating found materials and exposed bulbs. Given the time constraints of the project, I'm really happy with what I was able to put together (and what I learned about electricity) in a week!

P.S. A special thanks to Noah, Jesse, Leela, and Honda for making this such a wonderful class! I've really appreciated all your feedback and hope to keep in touch!

The holidays are coming...

This is awesome.

"Soft Hercules" was cast in foam rubber from a bust of Hercules (made by FAT - Fashion Architecture Taste).

My stool in a box

Hello!

Through my research for Project 3, I was inspired by a number of neat examples of seating made from repurposed materials and had initially hoped to use found/recycled materials for my own stool. Here are two examples:

bathtub chair!

shopping cart chair!

Unfortunately, limitations on time / access to & ability to transport re-usable junk made this approach more of a challenge than I originally anticipated.

Instead, I chose to go ahead with another design approach, inspired by this display-case-like coffee table design that I found interesting.

I was interested to play around with the idea of display by placing an everyday object in a clear acrylic case. Rather than putting on display and protecting an object of value, my case contains a children's stool from IKEA, $12.99. The enclosed stool supports no weight, with the surrounding acrylic box acting instead as the actual seat. Given it's small size, the stool could feasibly act as both a chair and as a display piece if it were placed on a table or bookshelf.

I love IKEA

Shopping around at Canal Plastics, I found a bronze mirror that I thought might jazz up the cube by further complicating the reflections within the acrylic box. I considered a number of options for what I could place on the now visible underbelly of the stool, but ultimately decided to paint it a bright red color.

The stool!

I wasn't too keen on the original IKEA finish of the stool and decided to paint the stool a darker shade of brown/bronze. Doing so brought up the idea of using the paint to make the stool look aged. Though I initially meant for the stool to comically elevate a simple piece of mass manufactured furniture by placing it on display, I'm also drawn to the idea of combining traditional and modern aesthetics by placing an antique stool in a modern acrylic cube. If I were to actually pursue this concept, future iterations of the design could potentially encase real antique stools.

It works!

I'm so happy with how it came out and thrilled that it supports weight!

No more tangles

For project 2, I chose to design a reusable headphone holder. Having often wrestled with tangled headphones myself, I hoped to create something that I could potentially use every day in order to respond to what seems like a pretty universal challenge for music listeners.

Through in-store/online research, it became clear that cord management is a concern for many products - extension cords, hoses, fishing line, shoes, vacuum cleaners, climbing rope & headphones, of course. 

Here are a few of the clever headphone specific solutions I found: 

    

   

Some existing designs, including for example the retractable headphones and winding plastic casing, required materials/mechanisms out of my reach for the scope of this project. But the silicon solutions were helpful illustrations of some of the features that I could try to incorporate into my design.

Several non-earphone related items also caught my eye. Here are three of them in particular placed beside the sketch model prototypes that they inspired:

Donut shaped extension cord holder --> Donut shaped headphone holder?  

a simple frame for coiling

a pouch to encase a hand-wrapped cord

In drawing up these rough prototypes, there were a few parameters that tried to meet in each design. The headphone holder should be: 

1. Able to stay attached to the headphones/music player while in use

2. Easily detachable, allowing the cord to be stored separately from player

3. Lightweight

4. Allow for ease of coiling/uncoiling of cord

5. Simple aesthetic, matching that of the apple products that I might attach it to

I decided to go ahead with the simplest design - a tube that would encircle the cord, with hook-like attachments around which to coil the headphones when not in use.

Finding the right materials (a very thin, but sturdy plastic tube) was a bit of a challenge, so I had to improvise with these electrical spacers and cable clamps (adventures in home depot...)

Given that no glues I had bonded to these pieces (even Krazy glue...crazy), I ended up connecting the spacers and attaching the clamps with white electrical tape to make this final prototype: 

   

If I were to create future iterations of this design, I'd try to substantially reduce the width of the tubing, so that it could fit more snuggly around the cord. I'm happy with the simplicity of the design, but the holder is a bit more cumbersome than I'd like given its size.

Happy Columbus Day!

hello and week 1

Hi! I'm Marina. Pleased to meet you.

Welcome to my blog about the things I'm making in XIND 105: Product Design 1.

During class 1 we began to wrap our heads around three dimensional spaces and constructed a few simple structures.

Shapes, a bit crushed after an afternoon around town.

Our first assignment let us experiment with the foundational principles of planar construction, as taught by Rowena Reed Kostellow, the influential and seemingly super sassy late foremother of the industrial design program at Pratt.

An afternoon with an x-acto knife and a pile of cardstock later and I had made a couple of exciting paper sculptures. 

Lessons learned - Working with paper was more challenging that I'd anticipated, as was consciously trying to avoid mimicking other forms around me. I created the first sculpture much more deliberately than the second, making measurements and creating multiple iterations to make the cone (kind of) work. But after talking it over in class, and having a little photo-shoot with the pieces in my living room, it seems like the second more spontaneous design was a bit more successful.

On to project 2!