Clock

INTENTION

The goal of this project was to create a clock using the laser cutting skills and techniques taught in digiTool. I wanted something clean with high contrast--something that could fit into the decorum of any room.

RESEARCH and SKETCH

When I create something, I try to do it from a place of identity. Being of a Muslim background, my go to aesthetic has always been crescent moons. So when the prompt of creating a clock was given, my initial idea was, of course, to create a clock made up of a crescent moon and three small stars.  Something like below, which has the clock hands in the middle of the crescent.

But seeing as how the lone stars could give me some trouble when it came time to cut, I began to think of other, crescent themed, ideas. That's when the DreamWorks logo came to my mind.  It's a logo that all of us with recent childhoods are familiar with. Appearing before some of our favorite childhood movies, we see a fishing bob drop into the water, as the camera trails up the line to a boy, fishing while sitting on a crescent moon. Moon crescents are, of course, a product of the sun's light rather than a physical crescent. But the point is that reality doesn't matter when you use your imagination.

In an effort to create something more adult, but with that figure still fishing from my childhood, I opted to create an image of the whole moon, the crescent in a layer of white, representing the light which it is really made up of. The boy is now a genderless figure, smoother and more ambiguous the the dreamworks one. Below is my very rough sketch.

At first I hoped to create 5 layers, but seeing as how I didn't want an ultra thick clock, I decided to do three layers instead, with the base 2 layers having 2 crescent type shapes etched or engraved. Each layer was 3 mm, by nature of the materials available.

PROCESS

My process was simple. I used Fusion 360 to create a circle, and then created 4 smaller yet still large circles and shifted them to create my crescents. I then free handed my figure fishing using various sketch tools in Fusion. My plan was for the fishing figure to be a part of the top crescent layer, but have their legs etched as to differentiate them. I then drew circles in the 2nd and 4th crescent from the smallest circle to add some designs using scoring and engraving. I made various extrusions to make making my DXF files easier. Below is the sketch of what I wanted my clock to look like, minus the extrusions or circle patterns.

And below is what the clock ended up looking like.

The circular patterns had the unintended effect of creating a more space themed clock, and the clock kit I was given had some nice turquoise hands which I think added a nice pop of color.

REFLECTION

Looking back, there are several things which I would have changed. For one, I used a translucent black acrylic layer for my middle layer and a opaque black acrylic layer for my bottom layer. I for some reason though my translucent layer would add some cool effect to the clock, but placed on the other black layer, it just looked black and had the undesired effect of showing the glue that was underneath. I think I also would have used some other color or material, to give the clock a bit more pop. I also would have taken more into account how the clock would stand up or hang, given that the hanging mechanism provided by Quartz is all the way on the side. I probably also would have added some markers for actually telling time. In terms of the actual procedure, I should have kept more in mind how everything would translate into a DXF file, given that I had a lot of different shapes layered on to each other. Next time I would be more cognizant that I would have to make extrusions of everything.

And below are the DXF files.