1. Origami

For the first Dense page I wanted to make something that really responds to each other. I got great inspiration from the book binding lady who showed us this book opening:

So I tried the principle out with a simple yellow paper:

I bought some black 300 gram paper and tried it out for real, but I couln't really figure out how it worked and I couldn't find anything about it on internet.

I dind't figured it out, so I started with a new origami project:

Waterfall origami: O [Origami]. (2018). How to make waterfall card easy [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5uz7fcU-HA&feature=youtu.be

Needs:

• Paper 4x 5x5 cm

• Paper photo 4x 4 cm

• 20 cm paper

• Glue

I added something extra for a cute surprise. It works great!

2. Cramped Tiger

For this little project I used the laser cutter and some recycled cardboard from the makers lab.

I came on the idea of a lion because of the Japanese garden I had in my moodboard. I saw a lot of Japanese tigers in the Japanese paintings I found so I would love to make something with a tiger.

It had to be a 3D dense effect with a lot of layers, so it would look like if the tiger really was in a dense situation.

Inspiration:

I came up with this design:

So I went to the laser cutter and cut and engraved a beautiful piece for the sample book.

The settings were a little bit more complicated than the settings I showed you before, here is a picture:

Material settings:

I had to add different settings to the scan layer:

As you can see I had to make different layers, so the machine knew what to cut and what to scan/engrave.

Outcome video:

As you can see I made serveral layers which I will glue on top of each other.

I really love the outcome! It has something dark and dense and that's exactly what I had in mind.

Tip: After the laser cutter was finish I wiped it clean with some dry (toilet)paper, else everything becomes a bit black.

3. Connected flowers

Fot the third page I wanted to create a sort of middle point of the dense - clear situation. So I used flowers in a mild origami way. It's a free feeling with a strong connection between every flower.

The tutorial I used was:

B, B. [Basteln]. (2017). Pop Up Kaarten maken: Bloem - Bloemen maken van papier - Cadeau maken [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFkMtX6PX78&feature=youtu.be

Needs:

• A few papers

• Glue

• Decorations (Colorful pens)

• Scissor

To get an idea of how I did it:

I was a bit unsure if it would really workout the first time I tried the tutorial, but the flower worked and had a really cool effect.

See the end result here:

4. Cohesive birds

The inspiration for the birds also came from the Japanese garden dense moodboard, but I wanted to make the image more clear with just a minimum connection between everything.

So I came up with this design:

Settings:

The outcome has turned out fine after some adjustments, because the design is not optimal. A lot of things were cut of and to fragile. I think it's because I wasn't patience enought to check if every line of the design went alright and I ran the laser cutter too fast.

But I had an open mind and worked with the outcome I had. It turned out that it fitted my idea perfectly.

5. Free Sky

I didn't really knew what to do with the last one. So I started to brainstorm about what was not really connected with eachother and what made people truly feel free. I came up with:

• Nature

• Moon/Sun

• Stars

• Beaches

I started thinking about surfing and hearing the waves. So I started googling some surf inspirations and guess what... Almost all surfers have a mountain tattoo (So says the internet). I never really climbed a mountain, I live in The Netherlands so I think I can't even imagine what a mountain would look like except really high. But I found a really nice image. Waves are directly connected to eachother, but (I think) mountains are not. So I wanted to mix some beautiful mountains with a starry night.

Inspiration:

Design:

Mountains:

I wanted to cut out the mountains and engrave their shapes and textures in it.

Cut settings:

Engraving settings

Outcome:

The cut function didn't really worked on this on, I think the paper might have been a little more thick than I thought it was. So I had to cut the mountains out myself and make some folding lines. But I really love the engraving and the color of it.

Stars:

For this one I used one A4 300 grams paper.

It had the same scan settings as the mountain engravings.

The outcome was amazing! You could even feel the stars a little bit:

Dense - Clear Final Sample book

For the final result see:

Lessons by Sam Edens

In this week, we’ll work on exploring material properties and experimenting with these properties. Material properties can change depending on the state of the material and each of these states offers different venues for experiments. For the making assignment, we’ll focus on turning 2D into 3D with the use of the laser cutter. You will create a sample book which displays manners in which a flat sheet can be transformed into a 3D surface by cutting cleverly and exploring this within one set of assigned contrasting material properties such as soft-hard, organic-geometric, flexible-rigid, transparent-opaque etc.

Core concepts: material engagement, material behaviour, affordances, material dialogues THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENTS

Assignment 0 - with the entire group

Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads. Write a text of approx. 150 words and create your own image.

Reflect on your process and discuss how you engage in a dialogue with the material through experimenting. How do the materials and the techniques you apply shape your thinking about the design? What kind of tools do you use in various stages of your creative process and how do they each facilitate different engagements, how do they help establish new thoughts?

Assignment 1 - individual

Create your own sample book in which you address the following aspects:

• Explore what the assigned contrast in material properties entails (this can be in the form of mindmaps, collages, moodboards etc.)

• Explore what the available flat sheets materials offer and what material(s) would suit your assignment best (share your results with each other). You can also bring your own material(s).

• Show iterations on the process, work towards a range of experiments that explores the two extremes of your contrast and various stages in between. Document your process and use a template to document the material properties, machine and settings used.

• Bundle your experiments in a sample book which displays your material exploration. Your sample book contains your interpretation of the assigned contrast, your experiments with various materials and techniques (at least 2 iterations with several gradations), and your final range of gradually moving from one extreme of the contrast towards the other end of the contrast (at least 5 gradations).

• Your sample book displays experimenting with the laser cutter. Use the laser cutter at least for one iteration with several gradations.

• Bookbinding is part of the process of creating your sample book.

• Document all the steps, tricks, tips, settings and outcomes as described on your gitbook documentation page. Please don't forget to document small experiments that did you perhaps did not include in your sample book (such as cutting/etching, folding/forming experiments).

Assignment 2 - with the entire group

Produce a collective sample book for the Makers Lab. The collective sample book contains a copy of your final material exploration. Each student contributes a spread showing the two extremes of the contrast. As the collective sample book is meant to inspire other users of the Makers Lab, please provide details of the material, machine and settings.

The assignment extremes

I got the words Dense and Clear. The meaning I found of dense is closed (Dutch: dicht). With the words dense and clear I felt I had to make a sort of dense situation to a real clear and comfortable situation. Also I found that dense ment that everything was connected and responded to each other and clear was that they didn't respond to each other and they could just be free. So I wanted to make levels of those two subjects.

Moodboards

Dense:

Clear:

Start lasering

I love working with the laser cutter! it is my favorite thing to do in Makerslab, even though there is so much more you can do, I just really love the laser cutter. It makes me feel free to add anything to (almost) everything I like.

So I started tesing with several materials. I also brought some stuff from home with me: a cotton cloth and a few 'plastic' Easter Bunnies.

Testing

While using the laser cutter we got a handy guide for cutting and engraving:

1. Arabic Lamp

I searched on internet for some nice and clear laser cut designs and I soon came out on Arabic lamp covers. This some inspiration:

I made this:

Laser Cut settings:

Layer 1

Layer 2

Outcome:

The 300 gram paper I used was pretty nice! It worked immidiatly, a few burn marks but it's really functional.

2. Engraved dragon

I have cut dragons before with the laser cutter, but I have never engraved them. I brought a cloth of red/pink cotton with me and I wanted to try some new things. I wanted to engrave a dragon in the cotton cloth.

File:

Laser scan settings:

It came out like this:

It didn't really worked out the way I wanted. Some parts were engraved and some were cut. I think you have to figure out if you want to scan or cut with some materials. So I went on testing a new figure.

3. Engraved Buddha head

With cotton you have to put the mode on scan if you want to engraved it nice and smoothly. So I tried it with a beautiful Buddha head design:

Laser scan settings:

Result:

I photoshopped the image more bright so you can really see the amazing result! The engraving color is a bit grey/yellow-ish. I really love the end result! The cotton fabric is still flexible and strong. A really wan to experiment some more with cotton and engravings. But firts one more test!

4. Easter bunny eyes

Together with Anoush I wanted to test the bunnies. Anoush came with the idea to give it a little face. Beautiful seductive eyes on a bright Easter bunnie. Because Anoush came with the idea a sadly do not have the files, but I do have the cut information.

Outcome:

We found that the eyes were not scanned deeply enought, so we gave it another try:

The eyes came out amazing! It's a really weird Easter bunny, but I really like the outcome!

Inspiration Sample book

• Presentation book binding lady:

The sample book won't be digital, it has to be a real book and we have to bind it, etc. These were some great inspiration to me.

• YouTube videos

For binding and making I used some YouTube tutorials.

Origami flower:

B, B. [Basteln]. (2017). Pop Up Kaarten maken: Bloem - Bloemen maken van papier - Cadeau maken [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFkMtX6PX78&feature=youtu.be

Japanese binding:

S [ Spirit]. (2016). DIY - Notebook: japanese bookbinding || Back to School [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Snjfao47DI&feature=youtu.be

Waterfall origami:

O [Origami]. (2018). How to make waterfall card easy [Videobestand]. Geraadpleegd van https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5uz7fcU-HA&feature=youtu.be

The making of: The Sample Book

Dense - Clear 3D sample book

Files:

For process and product files see:

The second zine we had to make was a really fun one. It was about a text we had read and to truly understand it we had to make a small text of a part of the text and make a zine of it.

Disegno zine

Text:

In Making things as ethical practice Nijenhuis wrote about the term ‘Disegno’ as the core concept of architecture. Disegno refers to the word design, which we all know. But Disegno (Design) has a deeper meaning, a meaning which is not so familiar as what comes in mind when we talk about design. Disegno is the visual expression and clarification of the concept that someone has in her mind and that he imagines in her thoughts and builds up in the idea. Disegno is often expressed by the hand through sketches. Disgeno has an abstract and a material side. The abstract version of Disegno is what the maker has formed in his mind and the material version of Disegno is directed by the hands of the maker.

This makes making things a physical affair. Mind and hands have a different representation about your Disegno. Let your mind be free and give your hands a change.

Designed zine:

Outcome on paper: