Design 100
05/03/2024
Brief：Project Overview: The content of this project is to use laser cutting technology to manufacture a lamp.
Description: The lamp I created is inspired by Dunhuang murals and Jingdezhen's ice-cracked ceramics; Technology used: laser cutting; Tool used: Adobe Illustrator.
Inspiration（reference）
Dunhuang murals
Jingdezhen's ice-cracked ceramics
My inspiration comes from the porcelain in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Jingdezhen. Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang is the crystallization of Chinese culture, Indian culture and other foreign cultures, and is one of the precious heritages of ancient Chinese painting art. As a traditional Chinese culture lasting for 2000 years, it is of great historical significance and artistic value. As one of the representatives of traditional Chinese craftsmanship, Jingdezhen porcelain is famous for its exquisite craftsmanship and exquisite decoration. These two elements are both traditional Chinese culture, and I want to add these two elements to my design, so that more people can understand the beauty of traditional Chinese culture and its charm. And I also like Dunhuang murals and Jingdezhen ceramics very much.
Mood Board
In my design, I chose to use shadow lights to express my design theme. Through this form, I hope to fully show the mural paintings of Dunhuang and Jingdezhen porcelain as well as the grain of porcelain.
Ideation
Draft 1
In the initial design, I chose a lotus flower as the shape of my lamp. However, I think such a design is too symbolic, and the design of lotus petals may block the light source, resulting in light and light shadows are not prominent enough. In addition, this design may result in the use of more than two pieces of A3 cardboard. As a result, I gave up this version of the design.
Draft 2 & Draft 3
Draft 2
In the design of the second edition, I tried to design the shape of the lamp by inserting some wooden planks printed with lotus flowers on a wooden board as a base. But I think this design is too simple, so give up.
Draft 3（final draft）
In the third draft, I designed the lotus seed of the first draft as the main body of the lamp. And the shape of lotus seed is very similar to porcelain, which also represents Jingdezhen ceramics. The base of the lamp is inspired by the Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants. Because the main body of the lamp looks very much like Squidward's head, so I had the idea to design the part of the lamp supported on the ground as Squidward's tentacles. As the result，I chosen this version as my final draft.
Iterations（improvement 1）
Final Draft
The lamp I designed consists of four panels A, four panels B, a base plate, four support legs, and 40 small parts for connection.
Panel A
In the hollow design of the lamp, I adopted the elements of flying sky/auspicious cloud in Dunhuang culture and the aperture behind the Buddha statue in Mogao Grottoes (Cave 057) in Dunhuang. These two elements are relatively common designs in Dunhuang murals, fully displaying Dunhuang elements.
Panel 2
The element used in Panel B is the "ice crack" on Jingdezhen ceramics. Ice cracking, also known as open sheet original, is an ancient Chinese ceramic firing process, because of its grain such as ice cracking, overlapping slices, three-dimensional sense of the name. Because the shape of the main body of the lamp is very similar to that of the porcelain, I designed the unique ice crack of the porcelain into the hollow pattern of the lamp, trying to imitate the unique texture of the porcelain.
First Prototype
This is the First Prototype of the lamp I designed. You can see that the light is not finished. Because I designed the card slots between panels and small parts between panels too wide, each panel could not be closely connected. What‘s more，the support column of the lamp is not stable enoughThe structure of the whole lamp is very loose and cannot be firmly spliced. In addition，The RGB color setting of the outer ring of the pattern in the lower part of Panel A is incorrect, causing the carving to fail to be fixed on Panel A.
The problems I should solve：
1.Change the dimensions of the card slots in the connecting parts between panels
2.Change the size of the small parts card slots between the connecting panels
3.Design a round plate to connect the four support columns together
4.Change the RGB color setting of the outer ring of the pattern in the lower part of Panel A
Iterations（improvement 2）
The problems I solved：
1.Change the dimensions “4mm" to "1mm" of the card slots in the connecting parts between panels
2.Change the dimensions “4mm" to "1mm" of the small parts card slots between the connecting panels
3.Design a round plate to connect the four support columns together
4.Change the RGB color "red" to
"blue" setting of the outer ring of the pattern in the lower part of Panel A
Second Prototype
Final Display
