At the heart of every project lies a purpose. A purpose to captivate, to inspire and to awaken emotion. Pixels to Plinth, the project where it is all about designing beyond the screen, where the plinth is not merely a pedestal for an artist book.

DESIGN ELEMENTS:

Octagonal plinth
Laser cut animal shapes

PROCESS:

Modified Plans, cut by laser
Assembled with lighting, tested
with LED’s and a cardboard prototype

FEATURES:

LED lighting that shines
through the laser cut holes,
Book holder for Artist book

OUTCOME:

Functional and visually appealing

Prototyping

Designing the plinth took considerable time with a numerous range of concepts. These concepts ranged from doing a DIY approach using repurposed materials found at local trash and treasure markets.

Some more intricate designs were also involved by using a laser cutting machine on materials like plywood and acrylic.

Several 3D models of potential outcomes were created, with the ones displayed here being only a few of what was digitally developed.

Some models from the concept stage made it into the rendering stage, and here are a few of the results.

A range of different shapes and styles came from this project, but ultimately it came down to simplicity, affordability, and equipment.

As a fail fast prototype, holes were hand drilled to create a design on the drum which required perfect accuracy for each hole, which was hard and being layers of cardboard, the inside quickly came apart.

Below is the design ready to be cut out on the laser machine.

The Pixels to Plinth project was a part of my Major project, #ATRISK. See more here.

#ATRISK

As the project deadline was approaching quickly, a decision had to be made and a purchase to Etsy for a box design plan was added. The original Etsy box was much smaller than the project needed, but it consisted of flat panels so it could be created on the laser machine. Its simple design also allowed for an easy assembly which gave it another tick. Using Illustrator to adjust the design to the desired dimensions, where the drilled hole looking illustrations were added.

NOTE: The red is to be cut out and the blue is for engraving.

The pattern was based on images of the 3D modeled animals that you can see more
of in another Project tile. However, to start this process a screenshot was taken of each model from Cinema4D. Those images were then imported into Illustrator, where the Image Trace tool with 16 colours was used.

To the right is an image sequence of the Night Parrot’s process to see as an example.

The image was expanded, and the background was removed, the pieces were then united using the Pathfinder tool to help create a compound shape. After selecting the main layer, the unwanted parts had been deleted, and the image was now ready to be used as a digital jig.

Since the new dimensions exceeded the A2 sizing, the plates got cut into quarters, removing some of the middle tabs and tab holes for a better finish at the joins. The panels were taped together, then secured with brackets. The width, height, and tab holes had been adjusted to fit the 7mm plywood thickness.

Modifying plans for the plinth allowed another level to be added, to achieve the desired height. However, this required cutting the middle plate twice for connecting the tabs from both the bottom and top layers of panels. For aesthetic and structural purposes, the bottom and top plates were done the same way.

The design had gaps between the panels, allowing light to shine through.

To fix this, a strip of black tape was placed over the gaps. However, because the drilled holed design of the animals overlapped the panels, the tape was cut to fit around them.

This adjustment was necessary to ensure the lighting was properly accommodated and the overall look remained cohesive.

At this stage, the appearance of the interior didn’t matter and ultimately it was painted black.

Once the plinth was built, there were two more items needing attention. The top of the plinth looked ugly with the seams of the quarter plates being visible, so it was covered with black felt, using spray glue to attach it.

After trimming the edges, the next step was to create a book holder, which in this case was 2 simple wooden brackets.