Back from ICFF

We got back from ICFF a week ago, and we’ve been really busy following up since then.   It was a lot of fun, and our new line had a very good reception.  The new pieces will be available online soon and at several stores including A+R in LA and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.  We also have them at the Brooklyn Renegade craft fair on June 6+7.Thanks to everyone we met and talked to especially Grace from design*sponge, Lloyd from treehugger, Katherine from readymade, and William from metropolis.  It was also great to see JB from blueoculus again, who I exhibited with at A+ in the NYIGF last February, and delightful to exhibit next to Jean Pelle.

thin ring in silver

After seeing the other rings, we decided to design a very thin, more minimal one.  It came out great and is very comfortable to wear.  We will have a very small quantity available at ICFF starting this Saturday.  We are exhibiting with designboom, come check it out!

The interior surfaces of the ring have a white unpolished finish, while the outer surfaces have a polished finish.  I think the contrast heightens your experience of the two layers.  An 8.5×11″ sheet of white paper goes a long way when you are photographing small objects…

Pieces for ICFF have arrived!

These pieces are 3d printed by SLS (selective laser sinteting) in a hard nylon material. We also have two samples of the rings cast in sterling silver which are incredibly amazing! They are off being polished right now and we won’t get them back until Wednesday; you will have to wait until then to see them.It is really great to finally be able to produce fully 3 dimensional works that get at the effect I was originally trying to achieve a couple of years ago. Hopefully we will have time to document the process by which these pieces were generated in Processing soon.Oh and I am probably dropping out of school.

new jewelry for ICFF 2009

We finally finished the jewelry designs that we will be premiering at ICFF 2009 in NYC in May.  There are 8 bracelet designs and 4 rings.  Bracelets will come in a small and a large size (59mm and 65mm) and the rings come in sizes 6,7, and 8.  All the designs will be available in white nylon (hard plastic) and some will be available in either sterling silver or stainless steel.  Still getting the metal part worked out.Does anyone have any suggestions for a name for this new line of pieces?  I’ve been considering Cell Cycle, Cell Division, and Subdivision.  I sort of like cell cycle, but Jesse says it reminds him of bicycles.Unlike our previous hexagon mesh work, the radiolaria pieces, these patterns were created by subdividing a mesh rather than morphing it with forces.   The pieces were designed using 2 spring meshes that form a vaguely torus-ish shape in processing.  We had the ability to vary number of divisions in x and y for both the interior and exterior meshes, we could create a twist between the two rings bounding the interior and exterior and also we can shape those boundary curves by sine waves.  The applet has two views, a 3d one and an “unrolled” view for the mesh that creates the exterior surface of the form.  In the unrolled view, we can click to subdivide the meshes to generate the pattern.  From processing, we export 3d solid meshes in OBJ format. These were then brought into 3dmax/maya (either will do) and converted from polygon meshes into level 2 subdivision surfaces. This last step smoothes our angular meshes from processing into the sinous curves you see in the renderings.Availability will be limited at first to 5 of each design for the bracelets, and 5 of each size for the rings.  They will not be available on our website until sometime after ICFF in May.Rings

new packaging

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.

ICFF! Maker Faire. Radiolaria applet improvements.

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.

Lastly we went to the Maker Faire and met a lot of cool people.  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.

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…

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.