DESIGN 100:
Laser Cutting Organic Lamp
By Amber.
Brief of project:
Design and fabricate an original lamp inspired by one of the provided mood boards. You must use the same mood board as your previous project. What project must include:
Process documentation (visual and written) of your making process, including ideation, iteration, and fabrication stages.
3 photographs of your final design that displays its function, context, and connection to the mood board chosen.
A written reflection of your design process (each stage), and the craft of your final artefact.
Mood board for lamp:
I chose the mood board of organic for my lamp, organic can be categorised as shapes that do not consist of any strict angles with lines that don't confirm to geometry. I chose organic mood board because I wanted to create a lamp that relates back to the environment. After using this mood board for my first project the 3D printed lamp I decided I wanted to carry on the ocean theme. I was planning around with apple backgrounds and found this clown fish photo below, I knew I wanted to laser cut out a clown fish. To keep the organic look with this lamp I thought I would do clown fish because every-shape and line on there body isn't perfect as seen below:
I made my own pinterest board of possible ideas and laser cuts so I could get a feel for how the laser cuts look and how they worked. I found that a lot of designs used a slot in technique however I wanted to shy away from this because I wanted to make 2d fish and make them cartoon. This lamp is targeted towards little kids I wanted to create a night light for my little cousin. My own mood board is featured below:
Link to pinterest board:https://www.pinterest.nz/amberrjudd/wood-design/
Ideation:
I started off with brainstorming by writing down couple ideas and doing some rough sketches around ideas of what I could do I already knew that I wanted to make a fish light shade so I just brainstormed a couple ideas that I might have liked and just brainstorming more ideas to see if I could come up with something else that I might have wanted to create instead. I did really like the wave barreling Idea but I wasn't sure how I was going to make the light work. The single fish was also a cool idea but I wanted to avoid making something that slots together because I knew I was going to run into issues with trying to slot it together. The other idea that competed the most with my clown fish hanging light was this fish bones idea and place the light inside and cover the laser cut with fabric so light glow from within but after talking to lecturers I was told I wasn''t allowed to use a fabric and only laser cut.
Final lot of ideation sketches before making:
I already knew the concept that I that I wanted to draw up and how it works. I made just an ideation page of possible ideas and how things are going to work and just played around with possible designs. The one thing I was unsure on was the base and how that was going to work so I drew up two options, the first one was three ring design I wanted to try avoid making things that slot into each other because I want it to be simple to assemble and simplistic design for the lamp base. I figured out that I wanted to cut out the tail and strips to be cut out so it allowed for the light to shine more through them and make patterns on the wall when the light does shine through.
ilteration:
For my ilterations, I only made one prototype because the prototype turned out how I wanted to make my final. I printed the base and a couple fish just to make sure that they printed correctly and that the string would fit through the holes. I then started to assemble some of the fish just to make sure that if would all work together. Originally I had planned on printing one ring but then I decided when I move onto my final to make two because this would all the strings and stones underneath to be less visible and give the lamp a cleaner look. After making the changes to my illustrator file I then took it to laser cut and put together my final design.
Fabrication:
for the fabrication process I made my illustrator file and emailed it too myself to be printing I ran into the issues of the colours not being fully red or blue so I had to change those in the computer before I started laser cutting thankfully it was an easy fix and only took me 5 min to make the changes. The first image is my final layout before sending it to be laser cut and the two videos below it are the laser cutter cutting my design I had to sit and watch it just incase something went wrong.
Fabrication of final design pt1:
I printed out about 57 fish and two circles for my final design, I constructed it out of fishing line, stones and the woodcut pieces. I started by tying the pieces on string in-between the fish to start the lines of dangling fish. I made 16 of them to fit into the holes. Once I had made the lines of fish I started assembling them to the base I found that if I just tied knots in the string it fell through the whole so I decided to add some beed stones on the top so that it would not allow the fishing line knots to slip through. This was one thing I encountered in my prototype so I had already come up with solution too it. I then moved on to attempting to make sure my light fit in the middle and that the middle hole was bigger enough for my light which it was, and then finally I attached all the rows of tied together fish onto the base to make the hanging light shade. All the stages talked about can be seen in the images above^.
Fabrication of final design pt2:
After actually assembling my lamp shade I decided that for my light I wanted to make it a green colour to suit the original image that this lamp was based off. I took a little container and used sharpies to make it green then I double sided taped on the little container to make it look like a light bulb. I finished my lamp off by making a top base to layer over the top to hide all the string and stones below to show a more finished look. the images above so the processes discussed.
Final Three Photos:
First photo: function.
I photographed my lamp plugged in at the wall to show the function on how a lamp is used. Overall reflecting back to my lamps function it serves well, it's giving the effect of fish swimming in a school although I would have liked the lamp to be photographed in a darker setting then you were unable to see the wish so wasn't actually showing you the lamp. I am happy that the lamp colours shined through the fish like I intended on however I wish the light was brighter.
Second photo: context
I photographed my lamp against the blank wall hanging to show how it would fit into a home. The hanging fish turned out effective and they even moved around. This lamp would be great in a little kids room although doesn't have much colour went turned off when its turned on it lights up the kids room like a night light. The fish are are lot easier to see however on a blank background and this photo shows the lamp as if it was being modelled.
Third photo: connection to mood board chosen
I photographed this up close to really show viewers the details on the fish and show that none of the lines are geometric and all organic. The patterns on the fish alone capture that organic look that I was trying to bring in from the mood board. I am happy with my discussion to carry on with using the ocean and nature as my inspiration because its good for a organic looking lamp.
Overall I am reflecting back on my lamp, I am proud of the work I have archived. The lamp meet my expectations of what I wanted out of it (which was an organic look and a cool kids hanging light). The ideation stage was a quick and easy one because I already had an idea on what I wanted to archive and the components i needed to archive it. I only really needed to sketch up the idea to get more visual feeling of what would look like and to communicate you as viewers my plan on what would look like. For my ilteration process I had the same problem because I had already gotten idea on what wanted to make an exactly how it should look I didn't get to make as many prototypes for next time I would evaluate this more and even explore some just in case I missed a great element I coulda have added. I am glad for my prototype that the laser cutting pieces turned out just how I wanted them for my final so wasn't any changed to my final design. The longest process was the fabrication process because I had to individually tie all the fish together and this was extremely time consuming took me we total of 3 hours to just setup the fish in their rows. Another issue I ran into with the fabrication was the fishing wire I used was small enough to fit in the wholes I created to hang the fish through but it was too big that the knots weren't staying and kept slipping through. For next time I would definitely use a different thickness of fishing wire however I couldn't have this time because I didn't have any. Overall I am happy with how the process ran but I did wish that I had explored further into my ilteration and ideation stages. On that point learning the software illustrator was a lot easier and quicker to understand how to use but this may just be because I have used it a lot before in the past, and the laser cutting process was made easy because I had a peer kindly run me through the whole thing and check my illustrator file for me.
The video below was just when I first finished my final product and shows you it when its moving and the light on:
