I really believe the beauty of minimalism. Simplicity is something I have always admired, and that is why I decided to design my clock the way that I did. Squares are also such a beautiful shape in my opinion. Another aspect of my project that I really loved was playing with the transparency, translucent, and opaque types of acrylic.
I decided to go to Pinterest for inspiration with my clock, browsing to see what I was really drawn to. A lot of the designs featured on Pinterest were either extremely intricate or extremely minimal (to the point that there was really nothing to do). So I compromised with a design I found and made it a bit more comprehensive than the original.
As I mentioned earlier, I started out by going to Pinterest for inspiration, and chose the design I liked. Then I began to sketch out my different versions - playing with angle, size, imaginary color, etc. I sketched both the final look, as well as the separate components.
When I got to the Fusion part, I first went a little bit too far, sketching out my final design in Fusion; however, I quickly learned that this was actually unnecessary and complicated things. Finally, I deleted the unnecessary components and simplified it to two separate parts, one of which I printed three times.
Printing the three similar components, I had originally wanted them to be the same, but was excited about the different types of laser cutting that I actually ended up deciding to make them all unique. This was part intentional and part unintentional. For example, with my black piece, that was originally supposed to be scored, but ended up cutting through the acrylic. While this wasn't my original intention, I actually liked the separate pieces it gave me and decided to incorporate it into my final design. After successfully scoring the white piece of acrylic, I didn't like how it wasn't as visible and decided to etch a border with my last piece. Finally, when I created my last piece with the numerals, it was actually far bigger than I originally would have wanted, and to be honest I was also to impatient to wait for it to be etched and cut it.
When the numeral piece was finally cut, I poked the pieces out and started to play with all of my pieces until I was satisfied with a design. It was a lot easier to visualize once I had all the physical pieces to play with and ultimately, I was very satisfied with my final product!
I think I learned to definitely plan ahead (like way more ahead), so that I can leave time for myself to really play and iterate on my designs. This would have made me not only much more comfortable with the materials, process, and technology, but also possibly could have resulted in an even better design. In addition, I learned that its a truly truly iterative process. What you originally intend on is not always what you end up with and you just have to embrace and be open to that.
Louise definitely helped me a lot along the way! Between the initial designs, Fusion files, and exporting DXF files, she was always there to help guide me. Stephanie Truong was also a great help in assisting me when I first started laser cutting. Thank you both!!
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