Monday, May 28, 2012

Artlantis Arts and Music Festival Prep

The Artlantis Arts and Musical festival is coming up this weekend-June 2nd.  The festival will be at the corner of Ponce and N. Higland at Druid Hills Baptist Church (across from Urban Outfitters).  I decided to create concrete planters and concrete coasters for this event.  I love concrete and as seen in past pieces, such as the Living Table, love integrating plants into the raw, industrial material.  Will post more as the planter process unfolds.  I started on the coasters this past weekend and have uploaded photos below.  Still in the works but gives you a good idea.  Would you set your drink on these?







Monday, May 14, 2012

CYCEL: Making Night Cycling Safer

Onwards to Post 2 of the series- projects from the Georgia Tech ID program continues.  This project was done in conjunction with Tory Harrison. 

Biking has become a newfound interest/“passion” of mine.  I use “passion” loosely since I haven’t had much time to ride this past year but I will say every time I hit the pavement and elude mac trucks and school buses determined to run me off the road, my heart starts racing and adrenaline begins pumping.

Tory and I decided to create a product through my “Wearable Technology” class to help  bikers on the road.  A huge concern among bikers is their visibility on the road, particularly at night.  We decided to create a jersey that is comfortable, functional, and will allow drivers to see you better at night.  Thereafter, it’s up to the driver as to how kindly they want to “share the road.”  I digress.  See below for model pictures of the jersey and design concepts.  Kudos and lots of thanks to Jocelyn Chen for lending me her sewing machine and to both Jocelyn and Starr Banks for providing me a crash course in sewing, guiding, pedaling, and for providing encouraging words as we broke countless needles and zippers.  Although, I did realize at the end of the night that sewing isn’t too far from sawing.  Who knows, maybe we’ll be on the next Project Runway.

Title: CYCEL

Materials: Polyester and EL (electroluminescent) wire











This image presents multiple design concepts and ways to incorporate the EL (electroluminescent) wire.  We ended up incorporating the EL wire as a box piping framing the shoulder after accidentally breaking the curved form by sewing over it (learning curve).  I would like to attempt the curved form sometime in the future.












































Final product: Thanks to Mona and Starr for the bicycle modeling.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Cardboard Chair

I started MDC Interiors 8 years ago and have learned so much in the process.  As the business has evolved, I found myself gravitating more towards design and product development. . . .which in turn led to the launch of the reclaimed furniture line in 2011.  I learned quite a bit through the furniture line and decided I wanted to learn more about design, production, and technical processes.  Enter graduate school.

I just finished my first year of the Industrial Design program at Georgia Tech.  It was a challenging year, balancing work with a full time school load, but I made it through.  Perhaps with many sleepless nights and one too many bowls of ramen noodle, but made it through nonetheless. 

I'd like to share some of my projects with you.  The next few posts will highlight some of the projects completed through the Fall semester ID program.
-Mike

Design Challenge 1:  To create a chair composed of cardboard that utilizes the integrity, structure, and function of the material to create an aesthetically pleasing and functional seating unit.

I really enjoyed working with cardboard.  Working with unexpected materials inspires creativity and forces you to think outside the box (literally).  I also appreciate that cardboard is recyclable, greener than many materials, and readily available to most people.  Next time, you're tossing out that cardboard box think twice about its potential.  

I've included the final product and process images below.




















Wednesday, May 2, 2012

New Table Alert! Glow Table Series continues.

In continuation of the Glow series, MDC Interiors recently added a new table to the technologically-inspried series.  Built for a client who loved the original Glow Table, we tried to keep the concept the same but build on to it a bit.  The client requested a mixed media piece and this is what we came up.  The concept drawing is incredibly basic but gets the point across. 
















The table is made from plywood, steel, glass and LED efficient light bulbs.  Similar to the Glow Table series, a dimmer switch is attached to allow the user to change the light setting and create different levels of ambient light.  We chose to make the drawers from glass so the light beaming from below will beautfiully display and showcase the items.  Depending on what is placed in the drawers (marbles, flowers, books), the beauty of the object's shape and colors can be highlighted.

Amazing photos taken by Karen Shacham.