October 12, 2010

Textiel Weekend workshop fun

Category News, Parametric Design, Repper, workshop — Tags: , , , , , , , — studioludens @ 12:36 pm

A week ago, we had a fun and rewarding weekend doing workshops at the TextielMuseum. There were two workshops powered by us: design your own sustainable packaging and design your own fabric design.

At the lasercutter, people could use Magic Box (our parametric design tool) to create there own packaging. We used a humble material -corrugated cardboard- and turned it into something precious, worth giving and worth keeping.

Repper pattern on the surface. The flames of burning cartboard were mesmerizing to all of us.

Girl mesmerized by the laser

The magic of technology revealed

Busy designing boxes

Designing boxes with Harry, Magic Box master

A finished box

A “bon-bon” box design by one of the participants

At another location in the TextielLab was a workshop making textile designs with Repper Pro. People could take a photo of anything, turn it into a pattern and print it on cotton. We don’t have the photos yet, but when you got the results, we’ll share them here on our blog!

We were featured on Brabant10, as part of the coverage of the Textiel Weekend. Check out the below video for our 5 minutes of fame on Brabant television:

August 26, 2010

Code tees – your secret in plain sight

Category Creativity, News, products — Tags: , , , , , — studioludens @ 1:41 pm

We just launched a new tool called “Code Tees”. It turns any text into a coded message composed of Braille, sign language or Morse code. Do you have a secret you would like to should out loud (I know it not yet Valentine’s Day, but still…)? Use this simple interface to put your most inner secrets on a shirt and wear with with pride!

We gladly donate 20% of our profits to Fight for Sight, a longstanding foundation that helps young eye-disease researchers get sufficient funding for their projects.

So get yourself a hyper-cool Code Tee and do a good deed as well!

October 7, 2009

Digital Forming’s software seems promising

Category Uncategorized — Tags: , — studioludens @ 2:32 pm
This NY Times article discusses a new collaboration of young designers and software developers. They aim to give non-designers and design amateurs control over the 3D shape of everyday products like pens, vases and lemon squeezers. The article focuses on the shift in attitude that underlies the mass-customization and co-creation and is a good introduction for those new to these concepts. I believe Digital Forming is on the right track. Letting a designer set the manipulation boundaries for a product and then allowing the user to play around within the “save zone” makes the whole process less scary for consumers. As we have noticed during our own interface explorations, good and easy-to-understand interfacing between product and user is essential for building confidence. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a screen shot of the software, so it’s hard to see how well it fits their target users. If anyone has some more info on this project, please post links in the comments!