Waking Up to Industrial Design

Hey, wanna see something weird?
I made a short film about how sometimes I get a little preoccupied with my work. I wanted it to be a film about me, but I couldn't find a director of photography to film it. My solution was to have an actor play me. Adding to the weirdness is the fact that the actor playing me is a woman.

The project that I am currently borderline-obsessed with is my Vegetarian Deer Mount. The half finished sculpture makes an appearance in the film. Occasionally I wake up having had surreal, project related dreams. This film is an exaggeration of that kind of morning... and it's supposed to be funny. Look for the finished deer in a few weeks.

Book Light

Part of the junior ID class has taken on a project that addresses the human factors issues in the UArts library. One of the most noticeable design flaws is the lighting. The florescent lights are standard tubes, fixed to a 3o foot high ceiling, that cast a dim green light over the work areas.

This is the first of many concepts for creating an environment that students want to be in. The Book Lights are inexpensive and easy to construct. Elegananly simple, it has only one flatpack piece, plus bulb, socket, and cord. The warm glow comes from a CFL that illuminates at a low temperature, guaranteed not to scorch the books.

Allen Shelf

Flickr for more photos

This is the first prototype for the Allen Shelving system. They are light shelves with surprising strength. They have the look of two layers of honeycomb stuck together, but are made from one solid piece. The different sizes of honeycomb pattern give it a random looking underlying structure, even though the pattern is even and uniform.

The shelves were named for both the Allen Wrench and Allen Ginsberg. The first thing that was placed on the shelf was a book of Allen Ginsberg's poetry, and the honeycomb pattern looks like the head of an Allen Wrench. My system for naming objects I design is quite profound, don't you think?

Lemonade from Lemons

So, I was documenting how to make a lamp so that I could post it on instructables, when I stopped drilling into the LDPE and started drilling into my hand with the most savage looking bit known to man. Unfortunately I was making the instructable for a class, so I had to do it even though I was bleeding profusely from the thumb.

To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to switch the focus of my DIY projcet to fixing my f-ing hand. Thus was born the How to dress a shop wound instructable... I hope you never have to use it.