Portfolio: Ian Farrar

Heading into this class, I was excited. Despite the fact that I am an engineer, I have always been artistic largely because my mom is an artist. Therefore, I have always appreciated the aesthetic appeal of designs, and I have wanted to learn more about what makes a product appealing from a visual standpoint.

The first major project for this class was the Upcycling project. It took me a while to think of what materials I could use to make a piece of art that I would be proud to show in this class. After some thought, I decided to use some of my old hockey sticks to make something unique. This worked well for me because I have always wanted to spend more time woodworking to make furniture and decorations for my living spaces. I then decided to make a small pot for some of my succulent plants out of my old hockey sticks, this planter was constructed out of short segments of hockey sticks that I had cut to length and squared off, using a wood planer. I decided upon a Scandinavian aesthetic for this project because I wanted the appearance of the planter to be simple and have natural tones. Therefore, the planter was hexagonal in shape, and the natural finish of the wood was largely left untouched. I used linseed oil to seal the wood and maintain its natural appearance and you can see the finished product below.

How the project started:

How my upcycle project ended.

For my final project, I decided to document the design and manufacturing process of an independent study course I had laid out for myself this semester. For this independent study, I set out to create my own custom bicycle frame. I have been a cyclist, my whole life, and it has always been a dream of mine to make my own bike. I learned that aside from the functionality of the frame,  there were also many decisions that I made purely from an aesthetic standpoint. In particular, I chose to follow an industrial aesthetic, because I wanted my frame to be simple, and I wanted it to appear had made. to be completely honest, this is not what I had intended initially for my final project. At first, I wanted to make a form of bicycle storage that would double as furniture in my apartment. However, after starting my independent study project. I realized that I was very passionate about the project, and I wanted to have a way to better showcase my project, therefore I decided to document the process of making my frame for my final project instead. I am very glad that I did this because I am very proud of the work I was able to accomplish on this frame, and more importantly, for this course, I am very pleased with how the appearance of the frame turned out. I am very happy with the raw steel appearance of the frame and how well my welds on the frame turned out overall. You can see my finished frame in the images below.

Final State of the Frame

Head Tube Welds

Rear Triangle Welds

Pure Joy

I was also enrolled in the graduate section of this class which meant I also needed to make a presentation about a designer or an aesthetic that interested me. I decided to research Pininfarina, an Italian coach maker, and automotive design company, that has largely been responsible for the bodywork designs of nearly every Ferrari road car ever made. I enjoyed researching this company to learn more about its heritage, and also learn about design firms, and how they can help improve the appearance of engineering marvels for customers and ultimately turn them into pieces of art. I have attached my presentation down below if you are interested.

Ultimately, I truly enjoyed this class! I appreciated getting to learn why it is important for products and designs to not only be functional but also appealing to the human eye. What we see is very influential on what we think and the decisions we make. In the future, I will seek to make my designs as a mechanical engineer, more aesthetically, pleasing, and try to explore my creative mind more. I have this class to think for this inspiration. Thank you for your time and for following my journey in this class. I have attached the links to my blog posts below if you would like to look back at my work, especially considering that I had to change many of the posts that I had made for my final project, however, they are now up-to-date, and I am very proud of the work that I’ve accomplished in this class.

Link to Posts:

https://www.aesdes.org/?s=Ian+Farrar&orderby=relevance&order=DESC&post_type=post%2Cpage