Linear Pleating Systems

I created these 2 pleating systems by first drafting them out in Illustrator and then sending them to the laser. The most difficult part of the process was, by far, folding them without tearing the paper. Both designs were crafted from 1 sheet of paper with a series of cutting lines to assist the folding process. In this series, folding guides were designated by dashed cut lines opposed to scoring. This folding characteristic is common in most corrugated cardboard boxes.

Breaking down the images.

Image #1: 1959 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight Convertible

The overall size of this car reminds me of a tank but when I got down low to snap this image, I realized how smooth and flowing the body line of this car actually are. The body line, mid-way, splits into two parts. The upper portion of the body is the taillight streaming out of the top of the fender. The bottom portion is accented with chrome molding. The way this corner looks is as though it is a space ship at a stand still, as though the car was frozen in motion. I feel as though flames will come shooting out of where the taillight and the backup light are located. It reminds me of a piece of clay as I look from the rear end to the front. It’s as though some took the clay and stretched it all the way to the front of the car. The depth of field seems like it’s at least 15-20 yards to the cars in the background. However, those cars in the background are only about 20-30 feet away. It’s like the front of the car is moving away from me.



Image #2: 1972 Plymouth Road Runner

The best way to describe this image is not that majority of the image is yellow but that its clean. By which I mean that there are no digs or dents and it’s like looking to into a mirror with wheels. What’s interesting about this image is the decal that was painted on to the car. The black blocks down the driver rear quarter panel that shows the Road Runner logo with the Road Runner itself. In the early 70’s, a lot of the muscles that were produced by Chevrolet, Plymouth, Ford and Dodge were designed very similarly. Because of this reason, I like the fact that the viewer is able to identify this automobile by it’s paint job and logo. If it were just an ordinary yellow muscle car, it wouldn’t have been so interesting to look at but its not. It’s a yellow and black accented 1972 Plymouth Road Runner, which is just as cool. I also feel with this image that with the angle of this image, that it’s slanted angle helps better understand the stance that the muscle car had on the road. The front of the car stood lower than the rear that stood slightly taller.


Image #3: 1960 Buick Electra 225 Convertible

Like most of the cars of this era, this was a very large car with a very large presence. What struck me as the most interesting part of the car was not the car as a whole but the front end. It felt foreign, something different, something that was just cool in a strange way, almost like an alien. The headlight bulged out the front of the car, staring at you. The fenders, above the headlights remind me of eyebrows, as they slant downward toward the center. Another part of the front end I also found to be human-like was the accent piece that is on the hood. It starts at a point and moves up the hood, getting wider and then disappearing into the windshield. With both, the accent piece and the windshield, it gives the appearance of a hairline and the top of the head. This car looks more human-like the longer I look at it and compare specific parts to the human face. The license plate hangs downward in the center of the chrome bumper, making it almost look like either a mouth or the bottom of the nose. It such an exotic look that it is hard not to stare at it and forget about the bright blue sky above it. The car just stares you down and demands a presence.


Image #4: 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible

One of the most recognizable cars on the road, the 57 Chevy Bel Air, is sharp and bold. This specific one in the photograph is different though. It’s not red and chrome, but instead it is a black Bel Air Convertible with gold and chrome accents, finished off by a bright red interior. What makes this image so strong is that the I have captured the rear passenger side fender flare that display the smooth bodyline, the clean chrome the cars golden emblem. It is interesting how the emblem stands strong in the middle of the image and that the chrome piece just above it have been angled in such a way that it almost looks as though it is parallel with the with frame of the image. Another part of this image is that when I crouched down to take this image, I noticed that not only was the car dig free but that the angle reflected the clouds in the sky. There is always something compelling about the reflection of the sky. Every person has his or her own way of explaining the symbolism with the sky but it makes me feel as though this car is almost too good to be true. It’s like the clouds are telling me this car is just a dream come true.


Image #5: 1955-56 Chevrolet Bel Air/Nomad

What is compelling about this image is the repetition that these Chevy’s have created. There were only two colors but the vast majority was red. As a car guy, the Woodward Dream Cruise is the one time of the year where everyone can come together and show off their cool cars and trucks. This image shows that so many people share the same passion. But not only do they share the same passion, it’s the amount of people that intrigued me. I remember stopping to snap this image while my friends walked on. The way I angled the camera makes it look as though the Chevy’s never end, they just go on down the line. However, no two are the same. Each car is slightly different whether it is something as little as the fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror or as big as changing the front bumper and grill. This image shows how many people can have a passion or love for one thing.


Image #6: 1967 Pontiac LeMans

There is simplicity about this image that makes me want to know more. Although I can honestly say, I wish I drove one, I find that the face or the front of the car was what caught my eye the most. In most cars, not all cars, the orientation of the headlights is usually horizontal. On the GTO & LeMans models from 1965 – 1967, the headlight orientation took a more aggressive vertical look. The headlights look like you are staring straight down the barrel of a gun. It’s like the car is saying, stay out of my way because I’m packing some heavy artillery under this hood. What makes it even more like a gun is that the top headlight stands out further from the body than the lower light. The part of this image that solidifies it is not just the headlight display or the fog light in the grill but that the Pontiac name is display just above the grill and the GTO logo that was usually located on the driver side, is not there. This is best way to know whether it’s a GTO or a LeMans is the little details. One may think it’s a GTO, just by the body style but it’s the little details like what emblems are where and which ones are placed there. I like the idea that the own could have taken all the emblems off the car and any person could make the honest mistake of saying it’s a GTO when it’s not. Then again, LeMans owners could always upgrade their car to make it appear as a GTO just by changing the engine and emblems.

Nope

Well, the hinge didnt work as well as I hoped. I still have a plan b that I will work on tomorrow.

A bit of a rethink of trailer uses

A new way of thinking about the trailer, not chiefly for a bike. It's all below.

Target Consumers

Meet: Charlie & Lisa

Age: 32, 31

Physical Therapist, Photographer

Married w/ one on the way

Dog owners

Hobbyist gardeners

Urban apartment dwellers

Charlie bicycle commutes

Lisa loves walking

Charlie is a happy man. He’s married to his college sweetheart Lisa and they’re soon expecting their first child. He enjoys his job as a physical therapist and is experimenting integrating their dog, Lola, into therapy. His life is a busy one filled with baby proofing, dog food, gardening supplies and groceries.

Charlie only lives a few miles from his job, grocery stores and local shops and would love to bicycle commute more often, but always finds that his old messenger bag doesn’t comfortably hold much more than his change of clothes and laptop. There always seems to be something extra he needs to bring to work with him or something to pick up on the way home, and while he would love to ditch the car and the parking meters more often, Charlie ends up using it more often than he would like.

Lisa never caught the bike commuting bug that Charlie caught, but loves to walk the 7 blocks to the grocery and shops close to their apartment. She can never pick up to many items on her trips though because she has to then carry them home and it can be a strain.

Charlie Needs: A viable alternative to his car for in town errands and commuting.

Lisa Needs: An easy way to carry items to and from local shops.

Project Brief

For my integrative project I am designing and building an urban trailer for the urban commuter. My aims for the design is a product that is stable and maneuverable, both fully loaded and empty, light weight, and versatile in use. Pivotal to the success of an urban use trailer is its versatility; both in the size and weight of cargo being carried and in the way the trailer can be utilized. My trailer is designed to be used both as a bicycle trailer, hitched and pulled behind the bicycle, and as a push cart for use when walking. I see the trailer not as two separate uses, bicycle pulling and walking pushing, but as a trailer that is adept at both situations and could be used in either form as its primary state of use.

Initial work on the trailer was primarily shaping how to carry cargo most adeptly in a bicycle trailer situation as the initial scope of the design was bike trailer first, walking cart second. A series of fits and starts struggling to overcome and move my project beyond established designs in the bike trailer market ensued and ate a considerable amount of time. Distracted by the Burley Travoy bicycle trailer, I was ignoring a potential use of my trailer, the walking side. Personal shopping carts are quite popular in Europe and large American cities, but few take advantage of bicycles. This is where I decided I wanted my trailer to reside, straddling the bicycle trailer and walking cart worlds, with out gaining usability in one area to the serious detriment to the other.

After 4 months of ideation and models on the trailer I have a clear problem statement and am quickly moving forward. The trailer is a frame and bag integrated together with two internal compartments for organizing cargo safely. In its bicycle state, the two main wheels rest on the ground and an arm folds up to attach to the bicycle seatpost. When used as a walking cart, the attachment arm folds down and it can be used either as a pull cart or with a castored third wheel folded down, as stable pushcart.

Thesis Research

This week was spent researching and rough editing my thesis.

I am also reading some very interesting texts by David Pye, courtesy of Jan.




David Pye refers to craftsmanship synonymously with workmanship, defining it as the use of "any kind of technique or apparatus, in which the quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works”. Explaining further that, "the quality of the result is continually at risk during the process of making", terming this the “workmanship of risk”. He contrasts this notion with the “workmanship of certainty”, which is typically the result of automation where “quality of the result is exactly predetermined before a single salable thing is made". Pye does not dismiss mass production, but acknowledges the standardized process as an essential in high quantities of quality objects. He also highlights tools for workmanship of certainty, jigs and measurement devices, as necessities for even the most traditional artisan. According to this model, craft is not the means of production, but simply the involvement of the producer.

Hinge Works

For my design, the most crucial part of it was to see if the hinge could actually work the way I wanted. I had a lot of skeptics thinking it would not work but alas it did. Surprisingly, when I went to WoodCraft in Canton they did not understand the hinge I was talking about. I then found an ordinary European hinge and decided to try my luck manipulating that. It worked perfectly. It does the exact swaying I want, and meets at an exact 90 degree to 180 degree hinge. This was just the first trial photos, but it did work. I need to now use better materials that can show the exact thickness I want and go from there. I am still not sure if this is the perfect solution, but at least I know now that it can be done.

The photos are out of order as well, so the ones in the middle with the clamps are the ones that worked. As of now, I fore see running into a few problems, but will address them as soon as I make a better working model.

As stated earlier, over break I went to Chicago to do more research for my project. It actually was very helpful to see some of the ways hardware works. I saw one in particular I though I could use and focused on two designs for my final. One is a small writing desk, that can open to a table. Other is just a table that goes to a table.

I have also been heavily researching architecture, and the history of modern architecture to inspire this project some more. I noticed that when I was designing, it seemed to parallel what architecture around me tried to accomplish. Four architects that I found inspiration from were Adolf Loos and his concepts of ornament as a crime, Le Corbusier, Gerrit Reitveld and his principals of De Stijl, but most importantly, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, some of whom were furniture designers in and of themselves.