This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love….
So as I can’t sleep right now, I figured i’d take a moment to show the Superleggera project of last semesters 3D Design class (DART291). Even though this is super old, this was our first major project as groups of 4. Thinking about it now, I wish I had kept the project description to put here but i’ll try to explain it as well as possible - if I find the description then I’ll just post it later!
Our task was to create a stool completely made out of cardboard, without the help of any adhesives, staples etc. that can support the weight of a man that weighed more or less 200lbs. Not only that but throughout the process, we were to research furniture, folding techniques, and most importantly cardboard as a building material. We also had to create:
I was in a team with Rez, Ivanna and Leanne - awesome girls I would be lost without.
1) Project Notebook - filled with research, brainstorming and technical sketches of our final design.
2) Instruction Package - included technical drawings, a rendering and an assembly guide.
After all of this, we were to swap instruction packages with another group and attempt to build their cardboard stool. Fun, right?
This is our team trying to figure out what the hell is going on - a common theme with the project haha.
So i’d like to share with you some photos of the process!
Here is a rendering of our successful baby, drawn by the wonderful Rez:
So we figured out (after Jeremy kind of obviously hinted at us 500 times) that triangles WORK. Our entire stool is pretty much made of triangulation, then a hexagonal shape was placed over top to make it look pretty and most importantly give a place to actually sit down on.
Here is just one technical drawing that shows the tools you need to make this stool - I’m only posting one because it might bore you otherwise!!
The team who received our package got it perfectly right so we were very very pleased with that!
This is our stool made by us being tested by Eli.
This is our stool recreated by the other team - it passed the test and looks pretty awesome!
When I first heard we were doing this project, I was excited…and then I heard we weren’t allowed to use any adhesive. Then after my team went round in circles for about 3 weeks, everything just sort of happened in the last week and came out really well! I really appreciated this project by the end of it. I learnt a lot about structure and support, and I also really enjoyed working in a team. I think we received a 32.5/40 which was the highest in our class so i’m really happy about that! The only thing I would change is either find a way to use less cardboard than we ended up using just to be more sustainable designers, and make our project notebook better (totally my fault).
So, hope you enjoyed my Superleggera post and it gives you a feel about how design school is going. Can you believe I’m still not tired?
So here’s one more pic I thought was kind of funny. The testing stage was really stressful for me because not all of them worked, it was kind of nerve wracking…you can see me in the background grabbing my face because I knew that stool was goin dooown…
Goodnight!
-Kate
In looking for past projects to upload, here’s a little something old from last semesters DART280 class. We were asked to choose a quote from an artist we believed and make a typographical poster out of it in Adobe Illustrator. I really enjoyed working with type this way and I hope you enjoy the result!
-Kate
Channeling Jules Olitski and Abstract Expressionism for my latest painting
Memories
Kate Hartmann
Acrylic spray on non stretched raw canvas then stretched afterwards.
4x6 feet - hand built stretcher - first try!
Now I have a Tumblr and I think it will be a good way to post all my design projects so family and friends can see what’s what! So, let’s start with a good ole design post before I head to sleep!
Here is a basic pinball machine that I designed for my DART 292 class.
Cue unprofessional photo:
The assignment was to hand make something out of wood and metal that included a hand made mechanism (i.e. you can’t just buy a hinge and say “voila! a mechanism!…I know, I was annoyed too).
After racking my brains out for a long time of how to actually approach something that even resembled my drawing, I stole some cardboard out of the recycle bin at the Fine Arts Building downtown and made this bad boy:
As bad as it looks wrapped together with painters tape, it gave me a pretty good idea of where to go and how big exactly I wanted this thing to be. I brought my ugly maquette to the wood shop and the men who work in there laughed at me. But! Without it, honestly I would have been lost - a good lesson to learn: always make a prototype, no matter how crappy it looks.
So after 2 days of sawing, sanding, drilling, gluing, clamping, hammering, and all that good stuff, here is my result!
I’m really pleased with the result because I am by no means a 3D type of designer. I am only learning now that when I put my mind to something I had previously told myself I was bad at, I can actually get some good results!
It’s made out of oak and glued together. The stand is drilled on so that you can take it off and store away the pinball machine, and adjust the height if you wish! I used all these great machines in the wood shop, including the drill press to make all the holes for the pins that I later hammered in. The metal is the metal pins and the mechanism also counted as metal - my mechanism consists of a big 6 inch bolt with a spring around it, pushed through a hole in the wood and attached a handle to the other side with glue and some screwing in - wow that was pretty bad English, huh! Time for bed I think.
Thank you Erwin for taking those good photos and sharing them with us.
So good night Montreal, more design to come!
-Kate
