Desktop Organizer:

Defining the problem: I need a desktop organizer that can fit Dome’s needs. Naturally I’m restricted by the specific material I can use, which is limited to wood for me. If it want’s to hold  8 1/2 x 11″ paper there needs to be one drawer that is at least that big. And then of course there is some individual needs I need to consider since I’m just making this for Dome. Here is a transcript of my interview with him:

What are your study techniques?

I have all of my stuff in boxes so that when I need them I know where to go.

If you had a desktop organizer what would you put in it?

Pencils, and pens mainly.

Would you like a curvy or a straight one?

I want a straight one.

Rounded corners or sharp corners?

Rounded.

Would you slots to hold your phone, or headphones, or laptop?

Not really I’d just want it for pencils but with different compartments.

What color do you want it?

Dark blue.

Do you want me to engrave your name?

Yes in cursive, “Dome Sim”.

Anything else specific you want in your desktop organizer other than more compartments?

Not really I hope you be creative and surprise me with something.

Would you like a place to store binders or books of the sort?

Perhaps — I hadn’t really thought of it before… — if you think it’d be cool by all means make it like that.

Then I proceeded to start to sketch what I will want the desktop organizer to look like. I made a couple of sketches originally, until I had narrowed down to a singular sketch that I decided I would base my design off of.

 

I presented these design ideas to Dome and he approved so I got to work transferring them to Rhino. To be honest it really took me a while to get the design finished, and even though I did procrastinate at the beginning, I honestly put a lot of work into it. The real reason I think it took me so long was because as I was designing the actual organizer I was also simultaneously learning the Rhino software. Nevertheless I took some final screenshots of the design which I’ll show here:

I then put it all together in Rhino, and, after many-a trial and error and learning better ways to make stuff fit together in Rhino, I had them all lined up in 3Dimensional space:

Thus, after becoming satisfied with the sizing and fitting of my pieces I got to printing. I last-second decided I wanted to engrave an L onto the back of the left side of my organizer, and accidentally screwed up the printing. In fact I ended up reusing the wood where I had misplaced the engraving so on the back of corner of my organizer there was actually part of the original misplaced “L”, (which I had to sand paper down). Nevertheless the pieces fit together well, as they did in Rhino:

Here is an image of the pen/pencil holder actually in use:

Looking back I actually really learned a lot from this project — from time management to fundamentals of Rhino to overall design processes and thoughts, (like when symmetry looks good vs. when it doesn’t), I actually really enjoyed this project. (Though Dome may in reality, unfortunately never end up actually using the desktop organizer, I really don’t know).

Initial Research and Brainstorming:

I initially did some research on Frank Lloyd Wright, especially looking at his work with windows made from stained glass. Though some of his work was asymmetrical a lot of was symmetrical. Regardless of the window’s symmetry, however, I found that his work almost always used the same color scheme throughout the window.

 

 

An Asymmetrical and Symmetrical Piece by Wright

 

After briefly reading Wright’s wikipedia page and looking at some more of his windows and architecture I began to realize how naturally his work blends shapes together, from one side of a house to another, or from one window to the next. That was something I wanted to incorporate into my design.

I wanted to delve a bit further into the graphic design work of other artists so I looked up other famous graphic designers. That was when I came across Michael Bierut, and his work. I liked the beauty of his typography, especially the way he had the letters change to change meaning. I didn’t really know how that would relate to my luminary but I still observed it nevertheless. Not to mention, his natural use of shape and line to create aesthetically pleasing 2D designs. I began to sketch some ideas out.

Initial Sketches:

 

Now that I had something that I more or less liked the most, I could start designing stuff on the computer. I naturally took the sketch I liked the most, the one you can see above, and started to try and translate stroke for stroke what I had drawn to the computer. Well, turns out that doesn’t work so well so I started to digress, creating a few new shapes, and changing some of what I used to think were negative spaces into positive and vise versa.

Here is an up close screenshot of a section of my luminary that I changed to positive space:

Notice the small joints connecting the triangles, (that’ll be somewhat of a problem later).

That specific part of the design took me a disproportionately long time to create as I wanted all the proportions of the design to look right. I was trying to go for a “falling triangle” effect, making the triangles seem like they were falling off each other at odd angles. But in actuality there was some order to the mayhem — the triangles themselves were identical, and actually created based off extensions of the circle and arc lines.

Thus far I have indeed forgot to mention a crucial part of the design process which I meant to blog about earlier. I am of course talking about the vastly important constraints. The restrictions imposed upon me for this project was that the luminary was to be made out of plywood, laser cut, and have the dimensions 12x24x0.22 inches. Fortunately my CAD was built with these restraints in mind and in fact fit them all.

After a couple hours more designing I came up with a design I was satisfied with and ready to use to laser cut a paper prototype of my luminary.

 

 

My initial 3D prototype, created from paper, looked good:

 

I decided I was ready to move onto actually printing the darn thing. Which at this point I was beginning to be a little impatient to actually do. Plus I the laser cutter wasn’t being used just then and I wanted to print mine before the start of class. Fortunately the results weren’t bad. I accidentally set the speed a bit too fast however so I had to cut a few of the shapes out by hand, (as the laser cutter hadn’t cut all the way through). Although for the most part the negative space either just fell out or I could rather easily push it out. Then I sanded the panels down to get rid of some of the discoloration that occurred when the laser printer cut it.

My last step was designing a holder for the light which would be 3d printed. I got the dimension of the luminary’s horizontal — which I got to be approximately 0.55 inches. I then did some quick math to figure at the diagonal and rather quickly and haphazardly, I’ll be honest, whipped up a design I sure hope will work to hold the light. I also had Mr. Brodie help me which sped things up and helped a lot. Here is the design on rhino:

 

 

 

I get the 3d-print back tomorrow in class so I sure hope it turns out fine.

Well fortunately the 3D-print out actually works. So I’m good for now. Here’s a picture:

 

 

After gluing the 4 pieces to each other and gluing a translucent sheet behind each panel, I placed in the light holder, sanded down the edges again, and I was done! Here’s a final picture: