Our fan/pendant design is a finalist in the ponoko summer jewelry competition! It is number#14, transient cool. Please vote for us. If we win, we will offer the piece for sale.
here is the link for voting, be sure to fill out the poll at the bottom of the page
We just entered another Ponoko competition with this fan/pendant. It was another jewelry competition, this time with the theme of summer. Working off that theme, we decided to create a pendant that transforms into a fan. A pattern is cut out of the fan which transforms on each layer, creating a moving 3D pattern when the fan is closed. This pattern is in fact a radiolaria pattern, where we have taken snap shots at regular intervals as the pattern morphs. The hexagons of the resulting patterns were divided into triangles.
The outer profile of the blade also transforms slightly creating a topographic surface when the fan is closed and a nautilus shell effect when open. The shadow looks almost like a ferris wheel, and the individual blades remind us of electrical towers. We find all of these images very summery, and I hope other people do as well. Below you can see a detail of the closed fan.
I’m excited to show off our new packaging. Recycled kraft boxes emblazoned with our logo and a pattern from the corresponding line. The rubber jewelry comes in sleak frosted plastic envelopes with tuck flaps.
Coming up with custom packaging for jewelry is tricky. Many companies offer hotstamping when you order several thousand boxes of one size. In addition to the inconvenience of having to order a thousand boxes of every size you ever use, there is also the issue that you have little control over the placement of your graphic. And the turn around time for that is 6-8 weeks! This means it definitely wouldn’t work for last minute people like us. Luckily there are some great sticker companies out there with very quick turn around times and a huge array of stock options. Why is the box making industry so outmoded?
In preparation for ICFF, I’ve also laced what feels like 10 million bracelets with silk ribbon. Here you can see them sitting next to approximately one 1/2 million radiolaria pendants.
From May 17 to May 20 we will be exhibiting at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair with designboom. That is one week from tomorrow. Since we got back from San Francisco a few days ago, we have been working like crazy to get everything ready. We designed a display wall last night with we hopefully have time to have made before the event. Also coming is fancy new packaging, business cards and other goodies.
We are also making a lot of progress on the new line of jewelry based on our algae/branching script. Originally these pieces were going to be exclusive to a new online boutique that is opening up but I have a feeling it is too late to meet their opening date. I have been working very slowly on this…
Lastly we went to the Maker Faire and met a lot of cool people, here is a photo of our booth. A few people were able to make their own patterns using our applets at the booth and then hop over to the fab lab to make them. Unfortunately the fab lab seemed to be having a lot of issues so not many people got to cut things.
Jesse made a lot of improvements to the Radiolaria applet. Now you can use a lasso tool to cut out a pendant from the mesh. Also the applet generates the cut files with proper offsets everytime you save. That means you can order your own custom radiolaria jewelry in steel now. Also a smoothed version is coming soon because Jesse wrote a subdivision curves method. I made these diagrams to show the effect of the tools in the radiolaria applet so you can understand the variety of forms you can create with the applet.
Check out the new and improved applet here: play + learn
A few months ago we did an interview over email with a journalist from El Pais, which Wikipedia dubs “the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Spain.” Last week it was finally published! You can read the article (in Spanish) here:
It is amazing to reach 2.1 million readers in a country so far away.
The April edition of metropolis magazine just hit the shelves yesterday and there is a full page article on us! We originally met Jade Chang, the west coast editor of Metropolis, at Felt Club’s holiday XL craft show. This was where we debuted our line and actually it was the only time we have sold our wares in person. Later she emailed us about possibly doing an article on us and a few months later we met her in a coffee shop in Los Angeles to do an interview.
I am very pleased with how the article come out and we even have an image in the table of contents! There is a little symbol next to the table of contents saying there will be more information available online too, but they have not launched the April edition on the website yet.
The online version is up at metropolismag.com now, or you can pick it up a physical copy at your local big chain bookstore.
Last month we entered several designs in Ponoko’s first design competition. Ponoko is a company based in New Zealand and San Francisco that will laser cut your designs for you. They have a simple template which you can use with several different 2D design programs (illustrator, freehand, and inkscape). Right now they are pretty limited in materials but they plan on adding some flexible ones soon.
From the entries, they selected 25 designs including 3 of ours and made them for free. From the top 25, they chose the top 10 and gave everyone $300. Check it out: here. Both the radiolaria bracelet (in PETG plastic) and the orchid necklace (in polystyrene) were selected.
To celebrate we are offering the orchid necklace for sale on etsy click here to buy one.
Here are some sketches for a table we’ve been working on for the past few days.
The basic idea behind it is to create a flat-pak, lasercut table composed of a complex, 3 dimensional branching structure that supports several lily pad-like plexiglass surfaces. One of the main issues we faced at first was how to join the flat pieces 3-dimensionally. At first we considered a system of notches but results seemed too messy and not very structural. Instead, we developed a system of joints and members in Digital Project. To enable us to make smooth transitions between members at any angle we are using three layers of material per piece which will be connected with pegs. Each joint is either a Y or an L shaped piece which interlocks with the members to create a strong and smooth connection.
Here are three examples of tables you can create with our joint system.
We decided to build a somewhat smaller table though as a test of concept to check out tolerances and the structural capabilities of the system. Here is a screenshot from CATIA showing the mini table we are having made:
Our new friends Ponoko are providing the laser services for us to produce this table. We entered their jewelry competition last month and are anxiously waiting to hear the results. Jesse will also be contributing to their blog in the future.
Here is a shot of the super cute cut file export Jesse made from CATIA:
I was watching an interview with Chris Anderson on television where he was talking about the economics of free. Essentially the economics of free is just an extension of the idea of the service economy, which is a strong part of postmodern ideas about production. Instead of focusing on selling products our economy is now centered on selling services. Take bookstores for example. A bookstore used to be a place you could go, and there would be a bunch of books you could buy. It was about selling books as a product. Now with online retailers like Amazon (and soon freely available scanned books), there is no way a bookstore could complete on selling books alone. So bookstores now have to switch to offering something else, offering an environment. Cafes have become a standard figure in major bookstores like Barnes and Nobles. They create a place you want to hang out, a place you can pick up a book and a cup off coffee and sit down for a while. You go to a bookstore for how good the browsing experience is.
The way this comes back to the free economy is that instead of selling a product, you give it away to entice people to use a service. This is the model for many open source software companies. The software itself is free, but what you charge for is technical support, custom extensions, etc. People use the software because it is free, and they buy your service because they have the software. However, for many online business (news, software, etc) the product is free, and the only service they provide is advertising. Google has made their entire fortune this way.
Now of course, I think free software is a great thing and Google is a great thing, but there is an inherint contraction occurring. Free online services both depend on advertising for revenue and render it obsolete. Services like craigslist, yelp, and blogs advertise products in a better and more efficient way than traditional advertising could ever dream. Organized consumer reviews are a way better advertising system than blind (or somethings not so blind) ads. I go on yelp and ask what is the best chinese restaurant near my current location. I can find out if something that looks good is actually a disappointment. I can even get recommendations on what dishes to order. No billboard could do a better job. Blogs spread news and info on new products in a much more efficient manner than buying ad space in a magazine could. Because people now have the ability to express and communicate there opinions so effectively, advertisements are obsolete. It seems like the only people they are good for are large companies with inferior products. As more consumers become techno-savvy, and we come up with better ways of organizing and sharing information this will only become more true.
But what happens to these free services we have come to expect. We will not suddenly start paying for the news again. There are a few options. One option is my analysis is wrong. Adversing remains valuable in some scenarios and can continue to be a source of revenue especially as advertisements become more targeted and effective. Another thing that could happen is that businesses will have to find another source of revenue. Just as the open source projects have support to provide, other businesses will have to find services they can provide. Additionally advertising essentially puts a price tag on attention; however, it is certainly not the value from attention. Business may find other creative ways to monetize attention. Finally, traditional businesses that depend on advertising could break down. In the news, this is already starting to happen. While investigative journalism will always be an important job, the majority of the news is up to the minute breaking news. Professional journalists are not required to report this type of information. Blogs are starting to take the place of newspapers and television in this area. For breaking news you do not need a trained writer or investigator. What you need most is someone familiar with the situation. Why should we pay to send someone to Serbia to report on something they just heard about, when we can just as easily hear from the people who live there? Bloggers often directly benefit from attention independent of any advertising because what they write about directly effects them (or its simply something they want to do anyway).
I am certain that there will be a depreciation of the value of advertising, but how exactly this will play out and how it will effect the free economy will be interesting.
This is one of the current projects we are working on. The concept is based on a growing branching structure implemented with a Processing script. The patterns will be manifested as stainless steel jewelry in a similar process to the dendrite line.
I originally developed the idea behind the script a year ago for a housing project that Jessica was working on. We wanted a system that would grow to look for optimal conditions for housing units. The initial work was in three dimensions, and the branches were trying to grow toward better light and a better view. Another important property of the structure was that it was self-repelling, so each branch would have sufficient room.
The script was revived for a poster we created for Felt Club (upper left image). This time it was modified to be only two dimensional and incorporate color. The branches start as a single line segment. The process of growth then involves two basic decisions: when to grow and in which direction to grow. The self-repelling nature of the branches greatly effects the direction of growth. We can also create areas of attraction or repulsion to shape the structure on a larger scale. For instance the pocket in the upper left picture is created using several repulsive forces. The decision when to grow or branch can be influenced by numerous factors: random chance, the density of nearby branches, the age of the branch, how far from the root it is, etc.
Now, we are revisiting the script again to create a new line of jewelry. We are exploring more complex dynamics and rules as well as increased interactivity. We want to play with rules that involve relationships between properties: as a branch ages it prefers less dense areas or density breed growth but not branching. We want to explore the relationship between growth and branching. Another idea is to add the idea of growth inhibitors and catalysts to create a more varied pattern. We also will be able to draw field lines on the environment as it is growing to influence the path of growth. We think this idea has great potential, and we may bring it back into the 3D realm to create some really interesting pieces.