Design Drawing - Excerises

Hi everyone!

I hope you guys had a nice Christmas/Holidays! I didn't get to enjoy the holiday break much since I had to pack up stuffs with my girlfriend and moved to the new place during the holiday week (Even on Christmas! Brutal.) before the Winter quarter start at UW.

Let me tell you something -  if you are/going to move to the new apartment, hire the movers. They saved our butts and made our lives sooo much easier. In all of our previous moves, it was extremely stressful. The packing, the carrying, renting trucks, trying to find a spot to park the trucks, cancelling all your electrical/phone/gas/internet services, cleaning the old place, cleaning the new place, paying for the new place, redirecting all your mail, the unpacking. My girlfriend and I were at each other face - arguing and yelling over stupid, little stuffs. The movers? We packed up everything we should find and they would move it in under an one hour n' half... Impressive.

You don’t realize how much random stuffs you have until you need to fit it all into your car. Sure, when you are actually living somewhere, you may think that your collection of expired coupons and the stuffed Cartman doll you drunkenly snagged from the claw game one night are necessary bits of modern living. But god dammit if the second you realize that you need to pack that shit up, you don’t have the urge to throw that shit away, then you are a better person than I am.

The worst part isn’t finding all the shit you are OK with tossing, though. The worst part is realizing what it is that you can’t part with. A little batman toy you got from a cereal box, a hot wheels Delorean, a poster you got from a magazine that you never intend to actually hang up. Hell, you are never going to ever use ever but for some reason you can’t throw out. It makes you feel like you are the star in a new episode of Hoarders. It’s depressing.

Both emotional and physical toll make moving an unwelcome experience. However, you can always look at the brighter side: you will be living in a new place, making new friends and perhaps enjoying a new lifestyle. The physical toll can be eliminated when you are able to hire a good moving company.

Anyway, that's enough about me and onward to the part where you really came here for!

These pictures are from the Design Drawing class at the UW. Basically they are an excerise to get brush up on your two-points perspective drawing skills.

How to draw cubes by using "Root Method" and "Diagonal Method" tutorial

No, we don’t design cubes, but the cube is a basic unit of spatial measurement.  Our design exercise was to draw five compositions of five (or more) perfect cubes in perspective – freehand. Don’t even try to use a straight-edge to draw them; Professor Sang-Gyeun Ahn would call you right out. We did a lot in class that first semester, but every night we had to draw those damn cubes for days/nights until they were perfect. It was a form of Industrial Design bootcamp. 

Cube Composition #1

Cube Composition #2

Cube Composition #3

Cube Composition #4

Cube Composition #5

I know they can be little bit boring right now but wait 'til later, I have the good stuffs that are yet to post. Stay tune!

Changing Direction - Update On My Journey

Hello Everyone!

I know it has been a while since my last post on this blog but lots of things has happened in the past years; When I was first started this blog, I was working my way toward to the goal: Becoming an Architect. I took the prerequisite classes in the past year at the University of Washington in order to be admitted to the Architecture Program (Which would explain my absences from this blog). It was an extremely competitive program with low chance of being accepted, even if I have the high grades and all of the right stuff. But I refused let it scare me and keep on trucking, stay focus toward to my goal. 

However, with the low admission rate into the Architecture Program and not wanting to be left struck with no major, I looked for the second major to fit my desires. Not wanting to give up on my passion of designing/building/art, I has came across the major that fit the criteria- Industrial Design. 

What is Industrial Design? An quote from idsa.org website -

"The people who design things like cars, bikes, furniture, tools and equipment, computers, medical devices, housewares, toys – all the stuff you see in stores, all the stuff people use at home and work every day, the things that most people think just occur somehow. The people who design these things are generally called industrial designers (sometimes referred to as I.D.) or product designers."   http://www.idsa.org/what-industrial-design-primer-beginners

Since I'm a Transfer Student, the only thing that I needed to do was to take the workshop entrance exam, an test for them to evaluate my skills and creativity.  The Industrial Design at UW is a three years program with the first year being dabble in all three different field; Visual Communicate Design - VCD (Think Graphic Design but more depth to it), Interaction Design - IxD, and Industrial Design - ID to further diversify your skills before you go study on more specialized path in one of those three fields.

Fast forward to a year later, my hard works had paid off. I'm proud to say that I was accepted into both programs-- Industrial Design and Architecture.

With the gap between acceptance dates (within Architecture and Industrial Design), I had a lot of time to research and plan for the future based on which program I may or may not have gotten into.

Not knowing whether or not I would be admitted into Architecture after receiving my Industrial Design invitation, I had to officially accept the invitation just in case. However, the program was not merely a backup, it was chosen with much thought, research and input from professionals. I was informed that my long-term goals in Architecture would require me to earn a Master's Degree, and I would therefore be better off diversifying by earning an Industrial Design Degree as an Undergraduate student.

Why did I choose Industrial Design? 

The Industrial Design program is still extremely relevant to my ultimate goal of becoming an Architect (if the passion for the field is still in my heart), and should grant me immediate increased career opportunities upon graduation (prior to earning my Master's in Architecture or an Master in Business). With all of this information and advice in mind, I elected to stay an Industrial Design major so that I can bring more to the table in the future.

Not only that, Industrial Design would allow my imaginative mind run free and design almost everything. For me, Industrial Design is fundamentally ‘thinking about things’. At face value Industrial Design is about making things - making things at an industrial level, so it is about mass manufacturing -big noisy machines with lots of white-gloved hands on sticks placing things in boxes onto conveyor belts to the tune of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse”. This means it is also about materials, technologies, process, marketing, branding, distribution and anything else concerned with transforming product X from an idea into something that can be seen hanging in the shops by the dozen alongside fifty almost identical items.

Don’t get me wrong, Industrial Design isn’t just ‘mass-manufacturing’; Industrial Design overlaps into art and science, and so it should. The language of Industrial Design is predominately graphic and sculptural-the sketch and the model, it has a natural connection to art and craft. When most people define design they mean styling, and Industrial Design is about beautiful objects as well, bespoke ‘designer’ pieces, limited edition fancy-pants concepts that will be shown in galleries and fill countless blogs that specialise in  ‘looks cool but could not work in real life’ ideas. Industrial Design is important because it is fundamentally ‘thinking about things’. To be a good industrial designer you need to think a lot, which means you need to know a lot. Read, listen to the radio, draw, be interested in the world, read some more, ask questions, sketch, talk to those who’ve done it before, contribute, copy, share. Never stop trying to fill your head and you will be a good designer. If you have thought about what you have designed, you can defend your design. If you conscionably can’t defend your design then don’t do it. There are plenty of problems in the world, trivial and serious, that industrial design can address. Have a think about them then have a crack at solving them.

On the final notes - Man, I just realized that I've applied to two of most competitive majors at UW;

Chance of Gaining Entry
Industrial Design - 28% (34 out of 120+ applications)
Architecture - 38% (40 out of 110+)

Of course, I am happy and extremely relieved but it doesn't mean that I can stop keep working hard. Far from it. It just means that in order to be a successful designer - I need to be more aggressive and work hard to make it happens. I'm looking forward to the future ahead of me and I hope to keep posting to keep track of my journey on new exciting path!

Pictures of Mechanical Iris (Design / Sculpture)

An completed kinetic project for my Introduction to Sculpture class at University of Washington.

A leveler (Not pictured) that is used to turn the iris to open or close will be attach to the outer ring later.

A center mark to make sure all "leaves" have the right measurements and close correctly.

Here is the link to the video of the Mechanical Iris in action!
New Project: Mechancial Iris

Also, here is the link to the youtube video that inspired me to made my own iris,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmdeaIknH54

New Project: Mechanical Iris

Back From Long Term Hiatus

Hey everyone! You've probably already noticed this, but this site hasn't been very active for the past year or so. There are various reasons - different life priorities, video games serving as an outlet for my manic ramblings, frustration with the way the life turned out (Got an rejected letter from one of universities I very much want to attend.) and stressed over my fiance's health problems, etc. Regardless of the reasons, I've often feel a sense of guilt over my abandonment of MaestroAtWork blog. 

Because of that, I don't ever want to shut the blog down. This blog was started as an outlet in some form of "diary" when the mood struck, and I'd like to keep it going. So I will try my best to post some pictures and possible some write-up of my experience so far in related to my goal of being an architect (Possibly an industrial designer) now and then more often.

I'm back and I have an treat for you, a video of my recent sculpture project; an mechanical iris. I will comment on it some more later on but for now please enjoy the video and as always, comments and feedback are appreciative!