Outdoor Concept No. 268123

February 27, 2009 at 4:07 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment

Circa 2006:  While at my previous employer, I tried to come up with some drastically different concepts to pitch to product line managers as well as to just satisfy my own desire for additional creative output.  This concept utilizes a typical approach to ‘sling’ seating, but strives for a drastically  minimalist and contemporary appearance.  Needless to say, this concept remained digital, never generating any interest for production.   The rendering alone looks good (Rhino model, Flamingo rendering plug-in) although I need to dig through my old files to find the original sketches…

Retro Style

April 21, 2008 at 8:24 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture, Laneventure | Leave a comment

Circa 2006:  This still-born project for Laneventure was an exploration in “retro” styling for the “extruded aluminum” outdoor furniture category.  The inspiration comes from many time periods – Bauhaus modern, to ubiquitous and low-priced patio furniture of the middle 20th century, to mid-century modern classics – but adapted to “standard” dimensions and cushion specs used in Laneventure’s other outdoor products.  The lounge chair was prototyped and shown to a select few, but it was deamed to be less important to develop than other projects that were in competition if I recall the story correctly.  Weather or not it would have succeeded in the marketplace is anyone’s guess; retro seems to work well for automobiles, but its been pretty limited in furniture.  None the less, I find the frame to be visually interesting…

Illustration: Rattan Chair Concepts

April 21, 2008 at 7:02 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment

Circa 2006:  A few rattan chair concepts that never made it off the drawing board…

CNC experiment #1 (console table)

April 10, 2008 at 3:18 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment

Circa 2005:  Not too long after I had taken my first job out of school, I had two problems that needed to be solved – find/make/aquire additional furnishings and storage for my apartment, and learn more about the CNC router at work.  I played around with many different designs, but ultimately decided to make a curvy, sculptural, CNC-cut console table to use as book storage and a place to keep the stereo system.   This allowed a crash course in taking a design from sketch to parts cut by CNC router.  It was suprisingly easy to get into a format that the CNC nesting software would actually use, despite the fact that my Rhino exports didn’t seem to work with the particular nesting software being used.  I decided that it was best to prototype it in a cheap material first, so it was run in MDF.   The MDF turned out to be barely strong enough to hold the glass up, much less hold anything on top of the glass.  In hindsight, I should have stuck to my guns and made the prototype from decent plywood, since I moved on to the Next Big Thing before making a usable version.  The technical success of the initial prototype spurred on many more experiments with the CNC router, which is the real value that was to be found in this project.

Danish Modern style

April 10, 2008 at 3:01 pm | Posted in concepts, Furniture | Leave a comment

Circa 2005:  A chair concept in the Danish Modern style.  Naturally, its meant to be built in teak with woven cane on the seat.  The color rendering was done in photoshop, the original sketch drawn by hand.  I pitched this chair to my employer, but it was shot down for some reason I can’t recall.  One of these days I’d like to try building it; its about half way down my 6-mile long list of projects…

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