Matthew’s Final Profolio

This semester in Aesthetics of Design gave me the chance to step outside of the typical engineering mindset and really think about what design can mean. Not just in terms of how something works, but how it feels, looks, and connects to people. I had two major projects this semester: the Upcycle Project and the Main Project. Both helped me explore the relationship between natural and modern aesthetics in different ways, and both pushed me to work through design and fabrication challenges that I hadn’t encountered before.

My Upcycle Project started with the idea of merging organic elements with modern design. I was inspired by a blog post by Lia that talked about the tension and harmony between nature and modernity. That led me to start thinking about how I could capture that same balance in a small object. I thought about using recycled PLA from the ITL, and then discovered wood-based PLA filament, which really clicked with my concept. I decided to make a pencil holder that incorporated the textures and imagery of a forest. Trees, branches, vines, and leaves were etched onto a cylindrical base. I wanted it to feel like a gloomy, late fall forest scene, something melancholic but calm. I used tools like wrapping in SolidWorks to sketch and extrude the features around the form.

The process ended up being much more difficult than expected. SolidWorks doesn’t really like asymmetry or complexity, especially when you try to wrap hand-drawn sketches around curved surfaces. I had to break my sketches into small sections, use a stop-go method for each extrude, and simplify a lot of the finer details. Feathers on a bird or veins in a leaf would crash the file, so I had to leave those out. Still, I’m proud of how it came out. I was able to include trees, mushrooms, fallen logs, and even a few birds. It functions as a pencil holder, but more than that, it reflects the design aesthetic I was going for. In the future, I’d like to reprint it using stained wood filament to really bring out the natural feel.

For the main project, I built a cherry wood coffee table for my mom. I picked cherry because it had the right combination of strength, workability, and warmth. The process started with rough-cut slabs that I planed, joined, glued, and sanded into a tabletop. I planned on making it circular at first, but I didn’t have enough wood, so I adapted it into a rectangular shape. One of the biggest setbacks came during sanding. After several evenings of work, I realized under a better light that I hadn’t sanded deep enough early on, so I had to redo the entire process from scratch. It was frustrating, but it taught me a lot about patience and craftsmanship. I added a fillet to the edges with a router and stained it with a matte finish. The legs aren’t done yet, but I plan to either buy or make them during break. Overall, I’m proud of both projects. They reflect different sides of me, technical and artistic, and helped me grow as both an engineer and a designer.