holder for small things

Intention

My goal through this project was to create a holder for small everyday items that I forget to bring or lose frequently. The main items I focused on were rings, bracelets, and hair ties. They usually stay on top of my very messy dresser and frequently fall off, so it would be really helpful to have a holder that stays on top of my dresser and organizes the objects. Also, I want this holder to act as a decoration piece to make it stand out in my plain room and to act as a visual reminder for me every morning. 

Research + Context

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There are a lot of jewelry/trinket holders out there, with these two being the most frequent general style that I saw. However, none of them were quite in the style that I wanted or compartmentalized for different small objects. Small dishes are a bit too general (I think the rings would settle at the bottom, and my hair ties would fall off the dishes), and the tree-type holders would make it too difficult to quickly reach for different objects. Current options are either too little or too much– I want to create a holder that is similar in basic motivation to the holders pictured above, but differs in specific functionality and in its more minimalist design. 

Inspiration

For the basic form of the holder, I looked to ceramics and more organic forms. I found this image of a succulent holder that holds multiple a once through these pockets within the larger shape. I want to emulate this type of effect with a holder that has pockets of multiple depths so that they are tailored to hold a specific object in them (rings, bracelet, hair ties), but in a smaller and more modular form. 

For the exterior of this inner shell, I took inspiration from this jewelry box that my mom used to keep on her vanity. I want to use this inspiration for the exterior shell for my holder, which will be laser cut in a design similar to the one pictured, in the style of a traditional symbol. I wanted to separate the holder into these parts because there is a lamp on my dresser, and the light coming through the exterior shell would have a really nice effect since I want this holder to double as a decoration piece. 

Sketch

When sketching it out, I tried to emulate how it would look in 3D but wasn't exactly able to capture the shape. However, I thought a lot about the form I wanted (a more blobular shape) and how I wanted to structure the different compartments in the inner holder. I also measured out dimensions both to fit the 4x4 maximum size and to tailor the sizes of each compartment to the item they are meant to hold. The most shallow pocket is for my rings, the medium sized one is for my bracelet, and the deepest pocket is meant for my many hair ties. 

For the exterior, I focused on what kind of design I wanted it to have and also how I would put it together. I considered making the outer shapes polygonal, but decided I wanted to keep it circular to keep in line with the inspiration shapes I was looking at even though I knew this would make it harder to glue the edges together. I sketched out a floral/linear type of design but wasn't totally set on how it would look and wanted to keep that part open for adaptation as I moved on in the design. 

Process + Procedure

For the inner shell, I took a lot of inspiration from the lamp and tent class projects and started out in the sculpt environment with a cylinder, then edited that shape to the exact type of blob I wanted. After creating the basic form, I moved back to the model environment and filleted the top to make the whole shape have no sharp edges, and then splined and extruded the shape of the pockets. I was careful to make sure to extrude the holes to the exact dimensions that I had intended to so that they didn't overlap, and also was careful to make the shapes have that organic feel. 

To make the pockets, I wasn't able to extrude directly on the shape since it is wholly cylindrical, so I constructed a tangent plane and sketched them on the plane. I had to be mindful of where the shape had "sides" and how big the wholes were, so that none of the edges on the overall shape and on the holes interfered with each other. 

I intended to print my holder in the stratasys printer with white filament, but due to a long queue I ended up printing my object in Scott Hall where there was only grey filament. I wasn't satisfied with the dark grey color and spray painted it white. 

For the exterior shell, I ended up straying a bit from my original sketch because there were too many curvy lines that didn't look great when modelled in fusion. So, I shifted more to a design that was almost totally linear and focused on more triangles/polygons. I took more inspiration from the array of traditional symbols that I found online (in the inspiration section), and used an image as an attached canvas to sketch more exact shapes. After an initial sketch, I mirrored it across the inscribed polygon inside of the circle, and cleaned it up a bit before deciding it looked good. 

Renderings

I have two renderings here – one in a warm light environment, and one in a room. I intended to print my holder in the stratasys printer that has white filament so I made the physical material in my renderings a nice matte white. I wanted to include both of these environments since the first one showcases the object very nicely, but the second one reflects my room and where the holder will actually stay. 

Photos

My favorite part of this project is probably the exterior shell. The intricate design came out really well, and it reminds me a lot of my mom's old jewelry box. The lamp casts nice shadows on my dresser through the holes in the design, and fits in with my room well. The inner holder is also really nice and has the ceramic feel, but looks a little messy because I didn't do a great job painting it. It's also very white – which is what I wanted, but it looks a little incohesive with the more natural color of the exterior. It looks like the bobbleheads from the animated movie Princess Mononoke, which I really like!

I may end up using these two holders separately since I can see the exterior part being really multifunctional and acting as a pot holder, candle holder, etc. 

Reflection

The first issues I ran into were when I was modelling the inner holder in fusion. Although the process was not totally complicated, it was difficult to get the exact shapes that I wanted and making them cohesive, since the I had to make heavy use of splines and editing the form in sculpt, two methods that aren't super precise. To make the pockets, I tried using holes and pipes before settling on extruding the shapes so it took some trial and error, and I had to be really careful with the dimensions since the whole shape was a little tricky to work with considering it was fully cylindrical. For a second prototype, I would be more precise in my planning and sketching so that the process could be shortened, but I was able to capture the general look I was going for. 

The exterior came out really well and even better than I had hoped, and I only ran into some small issues with gluing the sides together. I used masking tape, a glue gun, and krazy glue in three steps in order to secure the edges together. In a second iteration of this process I would come equipped with more tools and probably decide to make the edges a little wider to make this process easier. 

Lastly, my holder also ended up being really dense and took a very long time to print. I considered the density of the holder and how to make the holder lighter, but ultimately decided that the holder should have the holes be as deep as possible while retaining the general solid form of the holder. 

All in all, I am really happy with the finished product and I learned a lot about modelling organic shapes in fusion, 3D printing, and laser cutting intricate designs.