Student Work

I wanted to explore the rainy day aesthetic, because I think the contrast of tones and emotions is beautiful, and I find that it represents a widely universal feeling of comfort, safety, and melancholy. I think that this aesthetic has developed for a very long time in human history, and represents a safe haven of…

The aesthetic I have chosen to discuss is tropical. I chose this aesthetic because I think that it captures a feeling of relaxation and fun that I enjoy. It is used very commonly in modern clothing and architecture, as well as art.  It is difficult to say exactly when the tropical aesthetic was created. I…

Skiing is a winter sport used for both leisure and competition, common in Colorado as well as various states and countries around the world.   Skiing utilizes a simple concept which relies on gravity and the inclination at which the slope of the terrain is situated. The mission is simple: go fast and don’t crash.…

Top 5 Constraints Size The size of the box is difficult to grasp. It cannot be to big, otherwise it’s purpose as a desk toy does not work. Plus an increase in size means an increase of resources.  AestheticThe specific Aesthetic theme is hard to nail down. The difficulty is how the top of the box…

UpCycle Project summary: I chose an aesthetic and used recycled products to build something reminiscent of that aesthetic.  I started to make a sun-catcher out of recycled mirror and colored glass, but the project morphed into a candle holder/cover made from recycled Christmas ornaments.  Final Project summary: I took the opposite route of the UpCycle…

  Blog 14: Final Project Report Part 2: Why and What Next? Reflection on the semester. Compare your original project intent to what you ended up with. What did you learn from your project, and from the class? What will you do next with the project? What do you wish you had done differently?  …

When I started this class, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect. To me, aesthetics was just how things look. As I progressed through each class, and worked on the two projects that we were assigned, I realized there was so much more to aesthetics than how something looked. It was about how it was…

  What a roller coaster of a semester! This class definitely took me out of my comfort zone as I am not normally one who has a knack for artistic ability. I learned that the word aesthetic has actually a vastly deeper meaning than just “what looks good”. My final project was the cardboard grabber,…

Final Project   Final Project 2.0 This is the second version of the Final Project. I removed the desk toy aspect. It was too complicated and the lack of tools and resources made it too difficult to work consistently. I am refitting the box to hold jewelry. I plan to buy foam for the box…

Inspiration My initial inspiration came from when professor Hertzberg spoke about the final project and said that it needed to have a dynamic component. When I was a student in Heat Transfer Professor Knutson always mentioned and showed the class these little machines that operated off of a small heat differential called a stirling motor.…

My favorite design video is “A Robot Shoots Me When I Get Shot in Fortnite” by Michael Reeves on YouTube. Michael Reeves is a self taught programmer that uses his skills in programming and designing for silly and unorthodox projects such as this one. He adds a lot of satirical humor and comedy that makes…

Featured Image credit: Artist Shigeru Miyamoto: https://www.polygon.com/nintendo/2019/10/5/20900178/kirby-character-name-nintendo-lawyer-john-kirby-obituary This post serves as an anthology of my work for the course Aesthetics of Design, taken in the Spring of 2020 at CU Boulder, under Professor Hertzberg. Upcycling Project Description: “Create an artifact that conforms to an aesthetic, either the aesthetic you researched, or one that someone else…

Logistics With the current COVID-19 outbreak, all of the university resources and wood shops have closed. This has forced me to become a little more resourceful when fabricating my project.  Luckily I have already purchased all the materials I will need for Home Depot. Also, fortunately, my dad has many tools that I can use…

Everything was recorded/midi mapped in Ableton Live 10.  All drum sounds were royalty free, one-shot drum samples from the sampling service “Noiiz.”  Anything external was recorded with a Sennheiser MD 421 microphone and all the guitar was played on an Ibanez Stratocaster copy from 1983 or so, run through a Marshall tube amp.  All live…

My main project inspiration was first being Fibonacci Sequence, since I have always been a huge fan of those spiral design. But eventually, I opted for a hedgehog inspired design for my final project, because I thought it’s interesting to utilize the mimic the spikes on the back of the hedgehog into a functional design.…

Inspiration My inspiration for this project came from a few sources: the first being the vast amount of laser cut mandala art that exists on the internet.  I have always been fascinated with how machines can allow us to create products of complex geometries that are perfectly symmetrical with ease, and I wanted to use…

For the final project, I decided to make a radial engine powered by 8 solenoids. Before COVID-19 restricted our ability to use campus resources, I planned to machine all of the custom parts for my project. However, once we began quarantine, I settled on making a few high quality renders and motion studies of my…

What are neural networks? Biologically speaking, a mystery. Mathematically speaking, also a mystery. This video is helpful, though. This entire channel is. I think that there is something to be said about the quality of education you can find on youtube for free. I also watched a lot of various Adobe After Effects videos throughout…

It certainly was an eventful semester. I learned a ton about how aesthetics influences our everyday lives. Additionally, this course showed me the societal divide between the arts and engineering, and I made my best effort over the semester to bridge the gap and incorporate both artistry and engineering within my projects. In future personal…

Check out my final presentation: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdIACt75A70&w=560&h=315] In this section of my final report, I will detail exactly how I made my industrial/rustic aesthetic wedding arch. Shown below is a flow chart highlighting my design, iteration, and creative problem solving journey in order to complete this project. Each block represents about a week’s worth of…

My final project for the Aesthetic of Design course was entitled COVID Apparel. This project consisted of making dynamic clothing to encourage social distancing by flashing addressable LEDs red when contact is detected. All posts relating to this project can be found below: Project inspirations: https://www.aesdes.org/2020/02/19/main-project-inspirations-wearable-technologies/ Project aesthetics: https://www.aesdes.org/2020/02/26/main-project-aesthetic-flat-design/ Project constraints: https://www.aesdes.org/2020/03/04/main-project-top-5-constraints-6/ Project design review…

Timeline My timeline for this project was similar to as initially planned but varied due to circumstances involving the Covid-19 quarantine – my adjusted timeline is pictured below: Due to the displacement from campus, I lost about a week of time to work on the prototyping of the initial sculpture designs initially, which pushed my…

Project Outcome After I poured the resin and went over it with a heat gun, I let it cure overnight.  I came outside the next morning and almost cried as I saw cracks formed in the resin.  The issue that I did not think about is that the resin needed to be cured in room…

Inspiration My initial inspiration from this project came from a sculpture that I saw in the VAC, it was a concrete sculpture that used some sort of epoxy to replicate a river. It looked very similar to this image which is a similar project that I found online. I wanted to do something with concrete…

For my project I ended up creating a set of interactive psychedelic kaleidoscopes, all from repurposed material. The ‘aesthetic’ direction would be described as psychedelic rainbow as well spacecraft/future. This idea from the beginning was to make a spectacle worth experiencing, it was only a matter of time before I stumbled into what I would…

The fabrication process for my final project was fairly simple, and I was able to complete most of it over spring break. Since I was staying at my parent’s house for the week, I was able to use their tools in the fabrication process. The pieces that required specific manufacturing were the wooden base, and…

While this project had some significant changes due to COVID-19, I still feel that I ended up with a good final result. While I was originally going to build a speaker enclosure in the woodshop, I ended up having to make a render and detailed construction plans instead. In this post I cover what my…

Timeline As an overview, my project (COVID Apparel) involved developing interactive apparel that encourages social distancing during the COVID-19. The project timeline went largely as expected. The only noticeable changes were larger shipping times for electrical parts. COVID Apparel timeline The week of the Design Review will (3/09 – 3/15) was designated for ordering prototyping…

In this post I’ll be detailing how the algorithm works and what tweaks I applied to create the different images shown in my presentation. Since I was a little confused on the topics of the final blog posts, most of my schedule stuff got put into last week’s blog post. So the “How” will be…

For the “how” behind this project, I initially wanted to go with the route of laser cutting the outline (as shown above) based off of a 3D Solidworks model to increase the accuracy of the cutout, along with manufacturability of the piece. However, due to COVID-19 and the loss of University resources, I had to…

Timeline Fabrication I initially had the following timeline in mind for my fabrication: After COVID hit, I realized that I would not be able to fabricate my project in any way that would look half decent as I was relying heavily on the lathe and laser cutter, and my family have nothing more than a…

Presentation of the final project.

https://www.aesdes.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/zoom_0-1.mp4 Video 1. Final Presentation to Pod   My design process went through stages of change, with two large pivot points resulting from campus closures and lack of available materials and facilities. In  the beginning the arm was meant to be created out of multiple kinds of cardboard, paints for aesthetic design, and super-adhesives in…

So for all of us involved with this class there has been a lot of twists and turns taking us from our initial plans to our final results. I was thankfully fortunate enough to not have to completely shift my plans as I had the majority of the tools necessary to complete this project on…

Timeline: My design process went through three major changes which ended up changing the project significantly. First I had to find what object I wanted to create and then what aesthetic I would fit with it. I settled on a Octopus Statue with the wooden sculpture aesthetic. In my first ideation process I was going…

With the end of the semester being around the corner, I would like to say that I truly loved taking this course! It was a really interesting course where I got to do two great projects (the coat hanger with shotgun shells before) and I am glad that I put the time and effort to…

For my final project I designed an LED “neon” sign. This sign represents my love of aircraft, and incorporates symbols from my future flight training. A simple timeline of my project can be found below: After Completing my initial design I began ordering my supplies. A majority of my materials came from Amazon, to include…

This semester I learned about the value of aesthetics. A properly expressed aesthetic gives the artwork, object, film, book, etc. a tone of it’s own. While being predominantly interested in the steampunk aesthetic at the beginning of the semester, I learned to explore other forms and contexts through my own projects and those of my…

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Executive Summary can be summarized by the following Time-Lapse video: I. INTRODUCTION The following report will entail the specifics of Part 1 and Part 2 of the Final Project in MCEN 5228: Aesthetics of Design, instructed by Professor Jean Hertzberg. The differences between Part 1 and Part 2 aren’t too different, except…

After the Covid crisis started, I transitioned my project from the drink maker to a hydroponic garden. I wanted to make this system without relying to many ordered parts, and also keeping it cheap. There were many aspects to get working: The piping, the mounting, the pump, and the lights. For the main structure of…

Timeline My planned and actual timeline had been adjusted slightly after campus shut down, but with this being a pretty flexible project I wasn’t worried about little alterations in my timeline. My actual process is shown below, and the major changes described following. March 28th: Redirection in my aesthetic for my sweatshirt into harajuku, “mode…

Illumination Aesthetic For this project I wanted to take on the aesthetic of Illumination. Illumination is using light to achieve an attractive lighting effect on an object. I wanted to use LED strips to make something that could be held. I chose this aesthetic because I really like the look of LEDS in dark areas…

OVERVIEW Let’s talk about what a whirlwind of a project this has been. Last summer I had brain surgery and since COVID, I have been one of those people that can’t leave the house–I even have to get other people to go grocery shopping for me! So I had this whole plan for the project…

[1] Craftsman Style Home  While I was raised in Colorado, my aesthetic roots don’t fall within the Craftsman aesthetic (a common aesthetic for Colorado). Rather, I was exposed to Scandinavian design at a young age as it was something that my parents always touted as the best design. My uncle’s house was actually the biggest…

I am lucky to be able to say my original project intent has not changed much from its original conception, despite the COVID pandemic. I would even go so far as to say it was made better by the circumstances, if I simply decide to complete physical manufacturing at a later date. Here you can…

Why and What Next My laser cut enclosure panels finally arrived, so I was able to construct my desk lamp! Functional Motivation My main functional goal for this project was to alleviate the poor lighting in my room in graduate housing. I only have a single overhead light, that is far from centrally positioned. Accordingly,…

For my final project I am designing some clothes that are minimalist in style. This was not my original project plan I had planned to make a neon sign but with the developments of COVID and campus closing I have shifted to something I can complete from home and that I think is pretty cool.…

Introduction As COVID-19 continued to spread forcing the campus to close, I grew more worried about how I would complete my project. Thankfully, however, I was able to fully fabricate it with the use of my Dad’s tools at home. There’s no doubt the final product would’ve turned out better had I had access to…

For my final project I am designing some clothes that are minimalist in style. This was not my original project plan I had planned to make a neon sign but with the developments of COVID and campus closing I have shifted to something I can complete from home and that I think is pretty cool.…

Since the covid outbreak I had to change my project to be custom clothing. The construction has been pretty good overall I have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. The process started with choosing my designs and then printing and cutting them out. I had to wrap the designs…

My all time favorite design video is “Homemade – Boring Head” by This Old Tony on Youtube. This Old Tony has a home machining channel that, in my opinion, is very well put together; all of his videos are very well-edited and seemingly professional. His content is always intelligent, interesting, and frankly fun to watch.…

Aesthetic: This is the most obvious constraint of my project since it is for this class. My aesthetic is steampunk, So I would like the design to feature metallic finishes and exposed mechanisms. Manufacturability: I would like to make as many of the parts of this project in the machine shop as possible. THis means…

Last lecture of the semester, although we have two more days of presentations (M,W) next week, plus the Expo on Sunday May 3, 7:30-9:30 pm, as a Zoom event. See Slack for details. Lecture Notes Partial Zoom recording

After looking for some inspiration and doing some research, I decided on making my project fit into a utilitarian aesthetic. To me, this means that the design should be simple and straightforward while also providing a lot of functionality and use. This aesthetic involves a simple look and could mean “what you see is what…

My top 5 constraints for my project will be: Aesthetics: A tripod chair can vary from looks and fit into many different aesthetics. For my project however, I want to limit the design to a very simple and rugged look and fit into an aesthetic that suits that look. Size: I need to make sure that the…

INSPIRATION For my final project, I decided to make a simple but functional tripod chair. When doing research and looking for some inspiration on what I could do for my project, I stumbled onto a video showing how to make a “DIY” or “do-it-yourself” tripod chair. This video showed how to make a simple tripod…

This post is designed to summarize my final project from the beginning, so if you did not read previous posts, this should give you a clear idea of what I am doing and how I am doing it. For my final project, I decided to make a coffee capsules holder for my Nespresso original coffee…

After the COVID-19 restrictions my next step was to reassess my capabilities of finishing this project. I had already acquired the Arduino I needed to get the motion sensor working and was beginning the code, however due to delays the accelerometer needed to make the motion sensor work was delayed in shipping so I was…

My main project is a desktop toy that consists of three independently rotating concentric rings, with each of the rings holding different elements, again playing up the Kawaii aesthetic. (Kawaii exploration and definition here). The outer and middle rings have holders for mylar buttons, the outer ring having buttons of ~1” diameter, and the middle…

For my final capstone project, I made a 3D-modeled phone case, inspired from the spikes of the hedgehogs. I wanted to make a phone case that help people to stop using their phone, and end product did fulfill my initial expectation. The back is made of movable spikes with a mechanism inspired by lego. And…

For my final project I designed an LED neon sign. This was not my original design; until mid-March I had planned on constructing a wooden propeller. My original project was inspired by my love for aviation. The propeller is a classic symbol of aircraft; it is even used to symbolize the heritage of air power…

My final project took  a lot of inspiration from my previous Upcycling project and the chicken wire frame I had used – I enjoyed the usage of the material both in terms of manipulating it into a form I desire, as well as the intricacy and detail a wire frame can offer. Moreover, with a…

Time-lapse of Electrical Guitar Construction thusfar, sorry about the watermark, i’ll try to fix it in part 2, open to suggestions with free software: I. INTRODUCTION The following report will entail the specifics of the Final Project in MCEN 5228: Aesthetics of Design, instructed by Professor Jean Hertzberg. The report will detail the documentation from…