Stella – Lville Design

1: Inspiration for my designs

For my luminary I was really inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s stain glass windows. Looking at his work I knew that I wanted to include a very regular pattern in my luminary instead of having my design include shapes randomly placed about. I felt that the regular design would really stand out when you look at my luminary from afar. From Frank Lloyd designs I included the many triangles in my designs, as if they were arrows pointing a certain direction. I find that shape in my luminary to be visually appealing.

1: Defining the problem

For this luminary project there are several restrictions that we will have to be aware of when creating our design. This luminary has a height of 24 and a width of 12, with a thickness of 0.22. Especially when I was designing my final design on Rhino, I had to look out for a few constraints on my design. The curves that I had to make on my design had to be thick enough in order to make sure that the plywood would not light on fire. Throughout the design process I had to keep in mind that there had to be a good balance between positive and negative space, one cannot dominate over the other. Inside the luminary we had to make sure that there was some form of a light source, and in this project we used a lamp . The lamp’s diameter had to larger than 1.4″ and taller than 0.5″. I also had to create a lamp holder and to make sure that it would be able to fit into my luminary

2: Concept Sketches

For my concept sketches I tried to experiment with multiple designs. I first I created the design that I initially wanted to do. But after that I felt adventurous and wanted to create a design that was completely different to the one I had just created. I made the second design to have a very random and irregular pattern. In this design I wanted to experiment with using a range of shapes like circles, squares and triangles because I wanted to see the contrast of different shapes. However when I was drawing my designs I had to consider the limitations of this project. I had to keep in mind that I needed to be aware of positive and negative space. Therefore this idea altered the way I created my luminary designs. Another thing was I needed to be mindful that I was using a 24 inch piece of wood so that would once again change it.

3: Final Concept Design

I chose this design as it best replicated what I thought a stain glass window looks like. I felt like it incorporated a variety of shapes. I also like how although each of the design on the panels were very different the line in the middle of each design connected them all together.

4: Two Dimensional Vector Drawing

5: Creating a prototype

To create this prototype I first transferred my previous 2D design of my luminary onto Rhino in order to create a digital 3D model of my luminary. I had to extrude my 2D drawing, keeping in mind the constraints of the project as my luminary had to be 12 x 24 x 0.22. One problem I had when extruding was I had troubling defining positive and negative space, as the space I had intended to be negative turned out to be positive when I extruded my 2D design. However I was able to extrude it and above is a 3D digital prototype of my luminary.

6. Creating a lightholder

The next step of creating a luminary is to create a light-holder that would sit at the bottom of our luminary. This would ensure that our luminary would glow. When making this light-holder we had to make sure it would not be too small or too big in order to fit in the luminary. In class, we had decided that it would be best to have a circular base and have four.

7. Printing the light holder and Cutting out the luminary pieces

I had cut the pieces of my luminary using the laser cutter and from that I had constructed my final luminary. After the pieces were made, I had glued a thin translucent sheet onto the sides of my luminary pieces and then glued the rest of my luminary together. After the luminary was glued, I clamped the luminary pieces together and wrapped rubber bands around the final luminary. To ensure that the pieces would stay together and the glue would work. After a few hours have pasted, I glued all the sides of my luminary together. The image below is my final luminary.

After the luminary was constructed, I had printed my light holder using the 3D printer. Once it was printed, I had attached it to the bottom of luminary and the light holder had fit the base perfectly.

Desktop Organiser

Interview about Ideal Organiser with Kathrine Kiersted

The first step to creating this desktop organiser was to interview the user. I did this in order to sympathise the user and to find out what they particularly want in an organiser. Also to figure out what would best help their organisation and make them a more productive student.

Why do you want a desk organiser?

I want to have a desk organiser to help to clear up my desk because I feel that it is very messy. I have a lot of random stuff lying around my desk.

What specific area in your desk would you like?

I feel that I need to the random stuff in my desk, for example, gum, headphones and something that does not really have a category

Why size would you look for your desktop organizer?

I would like it to be flat and long in order to fit it into the little drawer underneath my desk. I don’t want it to be on top of my desk because I feel that I want more space on my desk to work.

Why have you not used a desktop organizer before?

I have attempted to organize, but I feel that I can’t organize the things on my desk that don’t have a category and those are the things that cause the mess on my desk.

What do you usually do on your desk?

I mostly do my homework on my desk, but at the same time, it is just a place where I dump random stuff that I just need to put down or things that I have collected throughout the day. However, I feel discouraged to use my desk most of the times as it is usually a huge mess and there are piles of things on that I have to move before I can start, for example doing my homework.

1: Defining the problem

The purpose of this project is to create a device which is able to organise someone desk in our house. We need to create a organiser that is easy to use so the user does not get discouraged from using this device as it may be too complex. I also have to make sure that the organiser does not take up too much space on the desk, as we still want enough space for the user to do their work and add extra items on their desk. This device is going to be fabricated out of plywood so we have to consider the thickness of the desktop organiser.

As I was creating the sketches, I wanted the desktop organiser to be flat, as I wanted the organiser to fit in the sliding drawer of the desk in Kathrine’s room. Also, I wanted to create compartments in the organiser in order to make the design a bit more interesting and so she is able organise her stuff easily. I tried to make the organiser more personal and decorative, for example in one of the designs I had added a “K” on the side of the organiser.

2: Concept Sketches

3: Final Design

4. Creating a 3D model of my desktop organiser on Rhino

On Rhino, first I had created the pieces that would form the outside of my desktop organiser. I had created the base of my organiser, the two sides, the back to my organiser, and the piece that would go in front. The dimension of my base piece are 30.00 inch by 29.78 inch. The back piece of my desktop organiser are 30.00 inch by 9.56 inch. The front piece dimensions are 30.00 inch by 4.39 inch. Finally the dimensions of my side piece, the base length is 30 inch, the top length is 17.72 inch, the front side of the piece measures 4.39 inch, and the back side of the piece is 9.56 inch. However, while I was creating a 3D prototype, I realised that these dimensions were too large and that my desktop organiser would cover the whole desk. As my design was too big I was unable to cut it in the laser cutter.

This is the layout for the compartments in my desktop organiser. The left image, shows the base of my desktop organiser and the right image shows the actual pieces that will make up the compartments. I created holes in the base in order for the compartment pieces to easily fit through. The widths of each of the pieces vary, however the length of my compartment pieces were 10 inches. I wanted to make each of the compartments different sizes, so Kathrine can organise different items into different compartments. After creating the pieces I extruded them by 0.22 inches and use that to construct my organiser.

Here are the actual pieces of my compartments. I had created joints in order for the pieces to fit into the base of my organiser and to attach onto the top layer of my desktop organiser.

This is the final prototype of my desktop organiser. Finally the last thing I made was the the curve in my organiser. I had created this by taking the 2D dimensions of the curve and then extruding that by 30 inches.

Here is a top view of my graphic organiser.

The final steps would be print the pieces out onto the laser cutter; unfortunately, my pieces are too big to cut out onto the laser cutter. Even if I did print the pieces out the desktop organiser would take up the whole desk.