3D Design Week

If I'm honest 3D Design was the week I was looking forward to the least. However, I really wanted to try and get the most from it that I could.
We started off by researching a designer and then giving a small talk to the rest of the group as to why we liked them. I looked at a few before I found Ross Lovegrove (see 3D Designers blog for more info). I liked finding out about which designers people liked and why.
Kathi (our teacher) then went on to show us how designs had changed and improved over time, It was interesting seeing how things progressed and how they can effect our lives for the better or worse (or quite often both). We discussed the good points and bad points of different designs.
After lunch it was one-point and two-point perspective drawing! This was to show us what kind of skills we'd need if we took 3D. It was pretty easy to get the idea of but I suppose if might get quite tricky if you're drawing a complicated shape - luckily we weren't! :)

We started day two by having a quick introduction into Illustrator. This was really useful because I know that I'll need it in Illustration as well as Photoshop.
After that we drew an object with a graphite stick, then a pen and finally ink and a thick piece of cardboard. I really struggled to draw this week; I felt like I wasn't being technical and precise enough for 3D Design.  I also found that I was very uninspired because we were drawing nuts and bolts, gears and random pieces of metal. I just find mechanical objects uninteresting - I'm much more into organic shapes and natural forms - and although I really wanted to get into the zone, I just couldn't seem to get it. It was very frustrating to me because I feel like I should be embracing as much as I can. I'm very disappointed with myself in this respect.

Later on we looked at shapes from our previous work to make into 3D paper form. I found this quite difficult because I didn't have a lot to go on. But I found some wavy, curved shapes that I liked and so I started to think about what I could do with those.

On the third day we got put into groups of three and told to design a 3D form that could have a function if properly designed. We were a bit unsure what to do to begin with because it was so open but we collaborated on inspiration and ideas and started working. We worked really well as a group and we had lots of ideas - unfortunately we had little success as they were too complicated for our skill set! It was rather frustrating but we regrouped ideas and started on something more simple. We didn't have a lot of time left so we didn't get to finish our work. I think it was good to aim high but not so high that you can't achieve your goal. I also think I work better when I have more of a brief so that I know what I'm doing and what direction to take. I also found it very difficult to work with the paper to create an interesting form; especially making tabs to fit the elements together without glue or masking tape! But this was useful to know because they were very effective! I don't think I'm very 3D minded! This week has definitely shown me that 3D is not for me but it's been a useful learning experience so I'm glad I had the chance to have a go at it.

This was our inspiration for the first piece - we thought it looked a bit lake a blue tooth  headset  and so we decided to see if you could have a go at making one out of paper.

It was quite difficult working out quite how it would look in 3D form and we did a lot of models to try to get it right.  

Curved lines just weren't working; we couldn't get the shape to curve in the right way so we decided to try more angular lines. This seemed to work better although it didn't look as good.  

In the end our original idea just wasn't working so we abandoned that idea and concentrated our effects onto a much simpler idea.