Collab 2008: 1st Place

The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Collab gallery has a student design competition every year. This year the topic was "Processing Frank Gehry," to coincide with the gallery opening of architectural models at the Museum.

My entry is the Lewis Bench, a set of two laminated plywood benches. I'm pleased to say that I was awarded first place! The former organizer of the competition said that it was the first time in the sixteen year history of the student competition that a project has been unanimously chosen for first place by all the judges.

There were murmurs among my classmates that the winning bench would be made by the museum. Unfortunately that never happened, and the bench still remains a quarter scale model.

One of the judges was Lewis Wexler of the Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia. Talking with him after the competition, he mentioned that if I build the bench, he will put it in his gallery. So, if you love the bench, and would like a one of a kind piece of furniture from an up and comming designer, than by all means please get in touch with me.

The PMA website has a very official looking posting of all the Collab Student Competition: 2008 winners. Click the links to see the poster, more photos, and information about the bench.

The Salp Light

Click here to Download The Salp Light PDF

The Salp Light is a modular light fixture. Chaining together individual “salps” enables the user to adjust the look and luminosity as desired.

The first question that you may ask yourself is "What the hell is a salp?" to which I would respond "It's a marine invertebrate that is a very important step in the evolutionary chain... which happens to look like clear jello with a blueberry stuck in it."

The project brief this time around was "Biomimicry": Looking at plants and animals natural systems as design inspiration.

Previously this year I haven't had the chance to do any lighting design, which is one of my very favorite areas of design. Once I found the tubular, gelatinous, bioluminescent salp, I couldn't keep my self from lighting any longer.

For much better explanations of both the salp, and The Salp Light, consult the PDF

iClamp Pro

Sick of trying to read the JHG Design Journal with only 1/4 of a screen? Then you need the iClamp pro: The perfect accessory for any almost new MacBook Pro
where 75% of the screen is gray due to a factory defect!

But seriously, there is a short circuit in my laptop screen that causes the bottom part of my screen to turn gray, like in the photo above. The only fix for it is to squeeze the screen with a clamp in just such a way that the screen connection is pinched, and the circuit uncrosses.

Apple products are beautifully designed with careful consideration to detail, and assembled with very tight tolerances: but it doesn't matter if the thing doesn't work and you have to stick a giant orange clamp on it!

I'm going to have to make a visit to the church of Steve Jobs (Apple Store) and get this straightened out.

Re/dis-assembly

For Materials and Processes class, Tristan and I were asked to rip a printer to shreds to see how it works. It took us 45 minutes, you get to see it in 5, in reverse, with a catchy soundtrack. (Sorry about the gray screen at the beginning, I guess youtube dropped it or something.)

If you listened to the live sound, you would hear me telling Tristan to get his head out of the picture every five seconds, I guess that's why we decided to be designers and not actors.

All the parts were recycled properly when the project was over.

Nimaya - Architecture Graphic

This is a graphic design project I did for a software company called Nimaya. I was asked to do a visual redesign of their Actionbridge software Architecture Graphic.

Unfortunately I was mostly asked to design for graphic appeal, not clarity. It's like looking at the pictographs of an ancient culture, no one really knows what they mean, but they're pretty. That being said, think my graphic is considerably more clear than the one it is replacing. Decide for yourself, their old graphic is below.

It was fun doing this project, working with the company was really easy and smooth. It was good researching a product that I had absolutely no experience with, and then conveying that knowledge through a graphics project.

Flex Bench - 2x4 Final Presentation

Click Here to Download the 2x4 Final Presentation PDF


Make a finished piece of furniture and a presentation that sums up a half-semester project, all in 6 days: no problem. I was so exhausted after this project that I'm only now posting it four months later. I think first semester sophomore year at UArts is like ID boot camp. They kick your ass early to make sure that you can handle it.

The bench turned to be pretty cool; it's still flexing and is in one piece. If you want to see it, I have it in my living room. See a recap of the project and the final product in the pdf.

Wind Powered Bubble Blower

Click Here to Download the Wind Powered Bubble Blower PDF

Who doesn't like bubbles? This project for 3D Techniques class was a study in mechanics and kinetic sculpture. Made mostly from wood, with a few styrene and aluminum parts, this sculpture went through a lot of design alteration to try to make it functional. Have a look at the PDF to see how it works.

Three Applications of Flexible 2x4s

Download the Full 2x4 Presentation 3 PDF

Cool stuff this week! The grueling material studies were successful in providing good materials and processes to make three products. The Sine Lounge (seen above) starts as a chaise lounge and rolls up into a compact package. As if that wasn't enough, there's also Two by Floor, a flexible flooring system, and Flex Bench.

Thanks to Thanksgiving, we had an extra few days to make all the stuff for this presentation. I still think that ten days is not very much time to make two pieces of furniture and a flooring system plus a presentation, but its all done now and I think I came out with three decent models.

Material Exploration (2x4s)

Download the full 2x4 Presentation 2 PDF

Nine material study models were made this week from three categories: Bent, Flexible composites, and Woven. Lots of fun stuff... assuming you like pine lumber. This weeks presentation is a bit light on text, so if you have any questions please leave a comment.

Something that seems apparent, but is sometimes forgotten while getting caught up making so many models in a week: Do strength testing after taking photos. See if you can spot the broken stuff (the linked mat is not broken).

Rama, the I.D. department chair, spoke to students briefly about protecting our work: so new to the Design Journal this week is watermarking. From now on in all the oh so informational PDFs that you have been downloading will be stamped with the oh so annoying watermark "Jesse Gerard / jhgdesign.blogspot.com." What this will do to prevent would be pilferers remains to be seen. But until I can come up with something better, learn to love the watermark.

Don't Throw Play Doh (it gets mad)

This is a short film I made last year, I composed the music too. I hope you like it!

This epic adventure begins with the blue ball flying playfully through the air. The story takes a turn for the dramatic when Blue's fun is interrupted by the careless Yellow. Enraged by Yellow's antics, in a brash move of aggression Blue consumes him. Alarmed by these happenings, the great powers that be amalgamates the two into Green. Green quickly recovers from the smooshing only to return to it's old habits.

2x4s - 10 Explorations

Click Here to Download the full 2x4 Presentation 1 pdf

The latest project studio assignment is a materials exploration project. The choice of materials is between industrial cardboard tubes, and 2x4s. Choosing to use 2x4s, I did some experimentation and simple models that illustrate what I think are some of the defining properties of a 2x4: such as tall... or wood.... I find it really hard to take these assignments seriously when I'm not actually given an assignment. This was another one of those brainstorming assignment where instructor just says "Okay, go ahead class. Make 10 of anything as long as it's not a useful product." The good news is that I received positive feedback on my goofy presentation, and next week I get to narrow it from ten, down to three different ways to wreck a 2x4.

Instant Village Final Presentation

Click here to Download the full Instant Village Final Presentation pdf

Cool Shelter Huh? It was a lot of hard work to put together something functional of this scale. As the first studio project of the year, Instant Village was a great survey of what it's like to take a product all the way from nothing to a finished functional prototype. Have a look at the pdf to get a look at the project start to finish.

Due to some supply problems, the tent looks like it was sponsored by McDonald's, but don't let that detract from the experience.

To see the team scramble to put it up while I take photos and boss them around, click on the video below (there is no sound: do not adjust your computer). Actual setup time was under 3 minutes.

Three View and Exploded View exercise

Hey, I learned how to draw! School really works. I did these on the train coming back from the Solar Decathlon in D.C. I think they're pretty neat.

Tony is finally letting me use a computer for 2D work. Here's the cooler version of the exploded airbrush (click to enlarge):

Hacked Design - Charrette

Check Out the Hacked Deign Website

Click here to download the full Hacked Design pdf

Every year the ID department at UArts has a charrette: a three day event where all the ID students are split into groups and design around a given topic. My group had two seniors, Brian Kelly and Eric Welch, one junior, and two other sophomores. Our topic was hacked design/ Design optimization.

Working from 9am through 4 in the morning for three days with a group of people I had never met before was a challenge. But don't think I've ever learned more about design in as short a period before. The seniors taught me a lot about design process and how to work under so short a deadline. The three "Do-it-yourself" products that we came up with (shown above) are very cool; the pdf has all the details. As a team we're in the process of patenting and marketing our ideas. Hopefully you will be seeing some of them soon.

Instant Village Presentation 2

Click Here to download the full Instant Village Presentation 2 pdf

This week as a team, we made a lot of progress in our design and presentation. We narrowed it down to one design (shown above), and added a number of features to last weeks design to make it collapse more... since that really is the only criterion.

The presentation is much more uniform than before, with a nice clean look. My contributions this week include drawing all the diagrams and sketches, drafting all the 3D models, taking all the photos, and the layout for several pages.