lesley hunt design

Lesley Hunt - Design I'm a designer based in Sydney, Australia with an interest in product design, textile design and biomedical design. This blog is an online visual diary of my notes, experiments and design development for my Objects & Accessories Studio - FOLD project Autumn Semester 2013. This unit is part of the Master of Design course at the University of Technology Sydney.

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Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It's enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything my head is bursting with it.

Claude Monet

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Week 6 : Experiments with sheet materials

This week I changed to experimenting with folding sheet material. I found some woven aluminium sheeting material that I combined with loosely woven jute material. I used layering, stitching, cutting and folding to produce decorative effects with the materials.

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The finished larger sample of the jute and aluminium sheeting.

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I experimented with using the woven sheet aluminium and the natural jute sandwiched together, sewn and cut then folded to create a decorative raised pattern with lots of texture.

The contrast between the texture of the jute and the shine of the woven aluminium sheet produced a very pleasing effect.... Here I used an interpretation of a traditional Japanese sashiko pattern to experiment with the materials, as it is easy to stitch in a continuous pattern.

Lots of different patterns could made using variations of these materials and this technique.

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A potential product application of the decorative surface design - lamp shade.

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Week 5 : Origami-style fold experiments

Having sourced a supply of split pins I continued experimenting with the woven plastic tape. I made origami-style strips of 3-D shapes that were held together with the split pins.

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I also used the tape in multiple loops secured on one side with the split pins. This gave a very pleasing shape, very organic and random.

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I used two of the folded square mesh modules on top of each other in a larger scale to create this effect.

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I also experimented with a plastic mesh material. I folded squares of the mesh into 3-D shapes and then attached them to more mesh material with decorative silver split pins.

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Marking and folding the tape in a regular pattern and fastening it with the split pins I was able to make a modular strip of the origami-style shape I developed last week. This strip could be bent inwards to make a closed circle with a very interesting and decorative appearance.

The split pins create a good detail in the centre of the fold and holds the tape quite firmly together. They are not difficult to use to fasten the edges together.

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The details are not the details. They make the design.

Charles Eames

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Week 4: More experiments with woven plastic tape

I continued working with the 100mm woven plastic tape this week.

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I started folding the tape into a loop and then catching the edges together in the centre. I had pinned the edges together, but wanted to use some sort of clip to hold it instead of sewing as I thought it needed some detail in the centre of the fold. I was quite pleased with the shape, but had trouble finding some sort of suitable clip so wasn't able to proceed any further with this experiment.

At the end of the week I found a split pin of zinc coated steel that looked promising. I will develop this idea further when I have sourced some more pins.

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I also tried to construct a 3-D object version of the textured surface I had made last week using this tape. The outcome was not was not very successful in my opinion. The folds needed more structure underneath and the overall effect was rather fussy. 

I did manage to find a way to make the folded tape into a continuous strip about halfway through the construction, which made it a bit quicker. However, I still had to hand sew the strip of tape to the proceeding one on the form, which was quite time consuming as it would not fit into the sewing machine.

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Week 3: Experimenting with woven plastic tape

I started experimenting this week with a roll of 100 mm wide white woven plastic tape. Again this material is relatively inexpensive and readily available in 50m or 100m rolls. I like the white colour of this tape and the way it loops.

I am not sure what type of plastic this tape is made of, but have asked the supplier to find out for me.

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Using the 10mm wide woven plastic tape I was able to make more crisp folds as it is stiffer and thinner than the woven jute tape.

I started by folding the initial shape I had used for the interlocking continuous modules I made last week, but wasn't very happy with the results. The tape didn't have enough body to provide the shape, even though the folds were cleaner and sharper.

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Next I made another textured surface with folded and looped woven plastic tape which I sewed to a backing which I had made from sewing strips of the tape together along the edges to form an A3 sized surface.

This was much easier to construct than the jute tape experiment in Week 2! I was able to use a sewing machine to sew the tape down fairly quickly to the backing material, just gathering the tape roughly with my fingers as it went under the sewing machine foot. Quite quick to make. The finished textured surface can be easily bent to cover a 3-D object.

However, the folds using this tape don't sit up as stiffly as those of the jute, they are more horizontal and easier to crush flat compared to the densely folded thicker jute tape.

I also experimented with just folding the tape loosely, making fluid organic shapes. But I couldn't find a way of containing or fixing the loops into a stable structure. Perhaps within another shape or boundary?