#1 - Design is a Job (CH1) by Mike Montiero

In the first chapter of Design is a Job, the author ultimately is describing the the real role of a "creative" (in this case, a designer) and how they aren't as "magical"as some people may think. They have to take in feedback, even if they think it's pointless and useless. The author also discusses how the designer chooses their specific area of interest based off of a problem that they want to fix, within a set of constraints. One major thing I took from this reading is that if a designer is trying new and innovative forms, those forms still must serve a purpose, or else they are just there for the sake of being there. The author also makes a point that  anything a designer makes needs to be sellable. Also, respectfully insert yourself and don't wait to be asked.

FINAL

Going off of Lab 4, I started to create the final project based off of sketches that I had drawn up when I was first coming up with the idea, and it was super important to have these drafts to understand the individual layers.

The thing that I thought I needed to do the most was go back into my illustrator file and add as much detail as possible. This was important to me because I knew that the laser cutter was going to be able to get all of those fine details, so I really wanted to capitalize on that and make sure I was still following the original prompt of the assignment, which was to make something that needed digital fabrication. So I went into the file and added more stars in the sky, as well as making the windows on the castle and the people in the boats much more detailed than before. I knew how accurate the laser cutter was going to be, so there couldn't be any mess ups in that portion of my design.

I then took the illustrator file and put it into rhino and tried to set it all up for the laser cutter, but I needed to decide on what type of paper as well as what size of paper that I was going to be using. I decided that card stock would probably be the best option, and it mostly comes in 8.5"x 11", so I decided that would be the general size for the shadow box. Then for the wood portion, aka the frame, I decided to do it in layers, so that each layer of wood acted as the spacer for the pages. This seemed like the easiest thing to do, because I was scared of measurements getting messed up for a normal box, and I needed the whole thing to fit together perfectly.

I got everything laser cut, and I was genuinely surprised at how easily the laser cutter cut the paper. Everything was so precise and perfect, and I was so glad that I took that extra time to make sure that the original artwork was near perfect. I then sanded everything, which took up so much time, and I think I might have spent too much time to the point that it was unnecessary, because it took me about three hours to do it all. Then I painted the pieces of the frame individually, waited for them to dry, then began to assemble. I started from the back and continued forward, alternating the two pieces that made up one layer of the frame and each layer of card stock. I weighed everything down each time I put a new layer on, just so the glue had the chance to cling onto everything and hopefully dry flat. Once that was done, I made the back portion of the frame, added lights and strung them through the hole through the back, and used command strips to hold the battery packs to the back of the frame.

I overall really like the outcome of my project. One thing that I wish I would've done differently is not spend so much time on sanding, especially since I ended up using paint. Another thing is that I wish that I spent more time gluing the frames and layers of paper together, because the layers don't exactly line up, and it's extremely obvious when I try to stand the whole thing up. Lastly, I wish that I would've combined the overlapped lines for the frame because it took longer to laser cut, and I think it burned the wood a lot, which also made it difficult to sand down. I think that this project turned out well for me, and I really like and am proud of what I designed and made.

Lab #4

Coming into this project, I didn't really have that many ideas. I was sure that I wanted to make something using the laser cutter, because I feel like I've 3D printed a lot so far and I wanted to use wood to have a cleaner look. I first thought that I wanted to make a jewelry box with patterns on all the sides using the laser cutter, but I decided that the concept was too simple. Then I thought about still making patterns, but using them to make a lantern instead. While I was looking at images for the lanterns, I came across this picture of a light box that had several layers of paper that all came together to portray a scene.

So I decided to go with that, and I would still be able to use the laser cutter to cut out each layer of my image as well as make an interesting looking box to hold it. I really liked the Peter Pan scene and I also saw an Alice in Wonderland scene that I thought was cool, so I decided to do a scene that was inspired from a movie. I really like the Harry Potter series, so I started to look at images online to get inspiration from. The most important thing was to find an image that had different layers to it so the light box made sense. I came across this image and decided to use it.

Then I brought the image into illustrator and used the pencil tool and the line segment tool to trace over what I thought should be each layer.

Then I brought the outlines into rhino, spaced out each layer by the same amount, then created a box to go around them.

Then I constructed my environment so that this light box could be visualized in a space. The first two images are all mostly one color, and the third is how I imported it into Fusion so that changing the appearances would be easier.

Fusion was a little difficult at first because I wasn't 100% sure how to render something, and I didn't know if a render was taking too long or not. I had a bunch of trials and errors when it came to rendering, but I think some of the images turned out fine.

One of the biggest issues that I had was trying to get the layers that were supposed to be paper looking more translucent. The translucent effect wasn't really working with any surface that I tried, so I didn't end up getting any of the effects that I wanted for the shadow box. There was probably a downloadable paper option that I could've tried but nothing I already had worked. Overall, I think this was fun to do, especially since I got to use so many different programs (Adobe Illustrator, Rhinoceros and Fusion 360) to make this scene.