DESIGN100 - CUT LIGHT
brief: design and fabricate an original lamp inspired by one of the provided mood boards.
As a starting point before selecting my moodboard, I decided to research examples of lamp designs and laser cutting methods online. Here's the pinterest board I made:
Lasercutting will likely limit the direction I can take my design. I'll probably only be able to use one material (an opaque, solid wood/card?). Making curved surfaces and diffusing light will be more difficult, but still possible if taking a different approach. The right-hand picture above shows examples of curved surfaces and how light can be diffused using strategic markmaking and cutting.
I like the diffusion of light and overlapping of shapes present in some of these designs. The contrast in shape, colour, thickness and angularity is also cool. I think I tend to gravitate toward loose and irregular shapes, so will continue with this project using the organic moodboard.
During studio, we were told to make to-do lists to help us stay on track. In mine, I outlined goals to achieve within the ideation, iteration + fabrication phases and set some time allowances. Time management is something I struggle with so I think this'll actually really help my design process.
IDEATION
Before doing any research, I made some pages of sketches influenced by the organic moodboard. I think sketching is a good starting point, but more research + exploration is definitely needed - my sketches seem confused.
I'm going to continue ideation by making a few more pages, but really focusing on the shapes, contrast, and patterns within the moodboard. I'll also try to forget that I'm going to make this into a lamp, because I think that's what's holding me back (lol).
28/04 - process updates
I also made a pinterest board to develop my ideas better, and give myself more to draw inspiration from. In the organic board provided, I particularly liked the irregular shapes of plants and the form of the clay pots. Using this board as a starting point, I started collecting images of dried plants, seeds, and organic forms.
I've been watching youtube tutorials and researching existing lamps to better understand what I can create. I've found that organic shapes can be made using contour map techniques, and by etching to produce a flexibile surface. This research has helped inform my ideation. Below is my pinterest board from earlier, and then some of the concept sketches I did based off of my research:
Concepts 1 and 2 (leftmost image) were done before I started researching youtube tutorials, existing laser cut lamps, and consulting my environment for inspiration.
Concepts 3 (center left) and 4 (center right) were influenced by existing contour mapping techniques. In the rightmost image, I tried to simplify my designs + incorporate organic imagery through scattered, random holes light would shine through. I explored some variations of this design as well. In these designs, I was shifting away from 'organic forms' toward 'organic patterns' - the body of the lamp is pretty regular, but the scattering of holes is random and influenced from patterns from dried coriander plants.
Going forward, I'm going to attempt to create simple designs in Illustrator, and then work my way up to creating one of these concepts.
ITERATION
29/04 - researching design methods
I'm using a miro board to keep track of tutorials + research. Here's a picture:
30/04
I followed a youtube tutorial on laser cut lamp designs using rhino. I wasn't able to complete most of the tutorial, as it was paid (i hate skillshare), but I managed to create a cog-piece for surfaces to attach to + LED to fit inside. I used circle, polyline, extrude and arraypolar tools (+ more) to achieve this. This process was unfamiliar to me, and pretty difficult - I'm going to practice more with simpler designs.
Some advice to note:
- laser cutting takes time
- simplify the design, as it makes for easier+faster cutting and assembly.
2/05 - first prototype (development)
My first idea is to print a round shape using hinges on illustrator.
This design is based off my fourth concept (focusing on organic patterns rather than forms). I'll add an irregular pattern of holes within the design, where light will be more concentrated.
The photos + video above are in chronological order, and follow the process I took to make this prototype.
The first step I took was to create the pattern for the curved surface of my lamp. To do this, I researched and experimented with many different kinds of hinge cut patterns, thinking about what kinds of shapes would make the surface more flexible. I settled on an equally-spaced pattern of ovals (I actually wasn't super sure about this, but decided to use it in my prototype), which turned out to be very flexible.
I used sketches to figure out what the pieces of my design would look like + visualize how they'd slot together. My design only involves 3 pieces - I'm not good at measuring things, and wanted it to be easy to assemble.
After making the pattern, I decided on measurements of 25mm (base diameter of lamp, circle piece), 30mm (height of lamp), and ~79mm (unrolled length of cylinder - [2 * (base radius) * pi]. I made identical base/top pieces, with slots to join with the cylinder body.
The process of creating the rhino/illustrator file was very long and frustrating - I was super unfamiliar with illustrator but kept trying to use it. I started feeling constrained for time, which is why I decided to make everything on Rhino (a software I'm more comfortable with), and copy it to illustrator afterwards. Using rhino tutorials, practicing using the software a LOT, and being open to different ways of working really helped me stay on track. I made a lot more models than are shown.
Another issue I had when making this prototype was the size of my design - I was trying to conserve material (only got 1 a3!!!!) and make the design more flexible by using small cuts. The result of this is that my design had a 23-min cut time. Halfway through this, the FABLAB computers timed out + the cutting terminated, which is why my design is only half complete :(
The stuff that was cut is very flexible, though. I thought it'd snap, as the joints are super tiny - but it was actually surprisingly strong. (video shows this)
Next steps are to:
- actually finish printing lol
- double-check measurements + how pieces fit together
- add pattern to design
- increase size of perforations?
- close top, base of design (less light escapes)
4/05 - reprinted design (prototype 2?)
re-printed the design without any changes. This was just to see how the pieces would fit together.
The measurements for this prototype were correct - the parts fit into place + the perforated piece was very flexible. I used hot glue to fasten the pieces together - I didn't do this super well though, so will use more care next time.
The alignment of the base pieces was slightly off (you can see this in picture 2). In future iterations, I'll measure the angle VERY carefully when assembling the pieces. Another thing I noticed was that some tiny cutout bits were stuck in the perforated piece - I used a small tool-thing to poke these out without damaging the design.
I feel okay with where my design is. I'm going to add perforations and close the base pieces to minimize the amount of light escaping. I still have a lot of material + time to make protoypes with.
4/05 - prototype 3, added holes + closed top/base
I added circular holes to the design - these were 1mm in radius each. I also closed the top of the design to lessen the amount of light escaping.
The holes didn't end up being super visible - as the entire surface has perforations, it's harder to tell where the circles are. There are some (poor quality haha) photos in the top grid that show the LED inside of the design. The red circles indicate where I added holes.
There are many things I could improve:
- add a rest in the middle of the design for an LED, so it's evenly spaced + not limp (measure slots in center of base piece, attach using blutak / temporary fastener?)
- increase the size of circles or decrease width of perforations (would involve remaking the pattern). Increase amt. of circles.
- COULD ALSO add material surrounding circles (offset?) - so they're more defined.
- adjust slots @ top/bottom edges - add 1 extra oval to height so bottom/top match (and base pieces can attach at the exact same point). Alternatively, subtract.
- add a stand to the design. currently, the lamp can't lie flat when an LED is attached because of the wire.
I think I could try add a flat panel behind the perforations/holes (across diameter of design) to try to increase the visibility. I'd do this without cutting anything. I'll take better photos + experiment with this tomorrow.
5/05 - material circle tests
(pictures left-right, top-bottom: both A and B, B (closeup), A (cut + bent), B (cut, messed up), B (cut) and A (cut).)
These tests were to see how i could make the circles more prominent within the design. I used a small section of the pattern to see how it'd look, without wasting time + material printing the entire thing.
I made 2 small repetitions of the pattern (A, B). (A) used circles of 1.5mm radius + another circle of .25mm offset distance. This method was likely to result in a less flexible surface - this is why I made experiment (B).
(B) used circles of 1.5mm radius, with 2 offset circles of 0.1mm each, trimmed in a way that was meant to make the surface more flexible. (this is shown in the second image)
Prototype (B) was very fragile - the joining pieces were too thin. The pieces were falling apart, and it just looked weird?? Prototype (A) was sturdier, and I could work the straight circle pieces to become more flexible - I decided to use the circle method from this prototype in my final design.
FABRICATION
5/05 - final design
The top left is a picture of the Rhino file I converted to Illustrator. I added rings around the circles to make them more defined, and added another row of ovals to the pattern so the alignment of the base pieces could be even. I also changed the scale of the design to be slightly larger.
I was going to see whether I could add supports in order to elevate the LED into the center of the design (and better distribute the light). This is why there are 3 base pieces - if I messed up, I could switch it out + there'd be no sign of damage.
Unfortunately, the 4x support sticks I printed fell down the laser cutting grill (??) so I did not do that!
Instead, I continued as normal: freed the cut surfaces from the board, molded the design into a cylinder and assembled the pieces. I fed a soldered LED through the lamp before fastening the top and sides into place using small amounts of hot glue.
The pictures below show function, context (desk setting), and moodboard connection. the final video shows the optical illusion effect of the lamp.
REFLECTION
PLANNING + IDEATION
I tried to plan my design process better during this project. Around the beginning of the assignment, I separated the project into ideation, iteration, fabrication and reflection stages (these all kind of overlapped, though), identifying tasks to complete and assigning time goals. I feel this helped me stay on track and continuously improve my design.
I used the organic moodboard as inspiration during ideation. I liked the irregular patterns and shapes of this board - I feel like organic design can be very soothing and timeless, and thought it'd be cool to try replicate some of the visual effects I saw.
My first real step during ideation was to produce a mass of sketches - I replicated shapes, forms and patterns from the organic moodboard, and sketched existing lamp designs I found on Pinterest (I also made a board for this). This was meant to help me get familiar with lamp designs and organic aesthetics, and to expand my idea of how my lamp could look. I also created my own moodboard to draw inspiration from, using aesthetics from dried plants (like coriander), irregular patterns, and natural materials.
Once I had a few concepts I liked, I continued ideation by experimenting with rhino and Illustrator. I wanted to make sure I went with a design that'd be achievable (but still cool!). I watched lots of youtube tutorials, tried to learn how to use different tools on rhino, and tried to figure out how I could model + print different concepts. I looked into a few different designs, continuing to produce sketches, and settled on using a perforated, cylindrical lamp with organic, irregularly-scattered holes. This design seemed easy to produce while still being interesting.
After researching different ways to produce curved laser-cut surfaces, I chose rough measurements for my lamp + started to produce a pattern on Rhino. This was a software I was familiar with, so I opted to use it over illustrator (at least until cutting). I experimented with patterns, settling on one I felt would work. Sketches helped me visualize the parts and measurements I'd need.
I think my ideation process was pretty thorough, but I could've spent less time on it and instead moved on to producing prototypes.
ITERATION + FABRICATION
My first iteration took a really long time to print - the computer actually timed out and I didn't get a finished model. The design had lots of very small curves that helped it flex, so I couldn't really change the cutting time (sorry to everyone whose laser cutting I held up throughout last week gahhh), but I kept this in mind for time management + future iterations.
My second prototype was a reprint. I noticed issues with the alignment of the top + bottom pieces, and didn't like how they were open - as well as adding hole patterns, these were the changes I made before printing my third prototype. After this, I continued to iterate, changing the way the pattern was designed + producing small material tests to conserve matboard. Once I was satisfied with the design, I added the LED + took my final photos.
I think I could've produced a few other iterations, changing the size/visibility of the circles in my design + making the perforated pattern less open (and the cylinder less transparent - there's a weird optical illusion effect that is cool, but not what I was going for). I wanted to center the LED within my lamp, but I didn't have enough time toward the end of my project. I think this could've made the lamp produce light + pattern more effectively. If I could redo this project, I'd definitely develop it more - I could do this by iterating more or seeking peer feedback.
I think I managed my time throughout this project well, and had fun using rhino + the laser cutter - I really enjoyed the design process. There are things I'd like to improve, but overall, I'm happy with my final design. It's simple, using curved shapes, interesting textures, and irregular patterns to connect to the organic moodboard. I'm also happy with the craft - the adhesive isn't visible, the pieces fit well, and the design looks cool!
