#repurposed china

[kelskordaki]

Repurposed Willow China Tangram set, with handmade bamboo display box and packaging.

[kelskordaki]

All Talk or All Tangram?

The halfway point of this academic year has struck and what have I accomplished? Well, so far I’ve briefly mentioned where I think design truly comes from, what makes a design luxury, why great design is timeless, that great designs are also greatly engineered, that the retail environment must be as equally well designed as a product and lastly, that great design should be obvious. So you may be thinking, yeah yeah, those are some great thoughts, but what did you actually do all year?! (Unless you’re not because you’ve already endured me posting endless progress pictures of my project)

My latest project was to produce 5 identical luxury products to be sold in the Glasgow School of Art shop. This project came with a huge amount of challenges and as a result I have learned a great deal about the world of design, manufacture and retail. The research I took from my London trip helped inform my decisions on what would actually be appropriate to produce for the GSA shop, which comes with a certain reputation of quality and uniqueness. I decided to pursue an ancient Chinese puzzle called a Tangram and immediately started exploring how I could make this reflect each aspect of great design I had established in my research. 

Below is my final product; the puzzle tiles have been cut from vintage Willow China using water jet technology, the bamboo box was made up of slices from a chopping board (the easiest way to get your hands on some bamboo!) and the cards were all designed and printed by me, along with a story that takes you through the Legend of the Tangram.

So, does it exude luxury? This is perhaps the most subjective criteria, but it’s certainly a non-essential item, the materials have been on a journey and also tell a story, it’s precious and also took skill to produce. I’m a perfectionist and as a result pick out all of the fine details I’m unsatisfied with, but overall I think it fits the luxurious criteria.

It’s a classic puzzle that has entertained and challenged people of all ages for years, and bringing a new material to this product that is timeless in itself (the Willow China) adds to how timeless a design I think it could be, though of course only time can really tell.

Has it been greatly engineered? This design doesn’t have a huge amount of engineering involved but that was really more due to the nature of the product itself. The bamboo boxes involved more woodwork and craftsmenship than engineering, the tiles were however cut using a computer generated file sent to a water-jet cutting machine. This proved to be a fairly difficult process as it was questionable whether or not the water-jet would cut the china plates without shattering them, and once it was found to be successful, I had to source enough Willow China and rely on an external company to get them all cut on time. So while my Tangram was perhaps not extensively engineered, it was at least well thought through.

Was it obvious? I tried to think through and link every design decision I made so that nothing was done without a reason. The materials and aesthetics were all chosen to reflect a Chinese background; the bamboo box with the Willow China, the simple clean graphics on the puzzle card and the story written to depict the Chinese legend, all fit together in a way that hopefully creates an obvious final design.

Was it appropriate for it’s retail environment? Considering this was the whole point of the project, I’d like to think it was appropriate, but let’s not just blindly assume. I mentioned the GSA shop came with a reputation of quality and uniqueness, that’s because people from all over the world flock to GSA in search of the iconic designs of Mackintosh. The school is renowned for producing notoriously successful artists and designers and as a result, though I  of course have a lot yet to learn, I still have this reputation to live up to. 

Considering everything I discussed above I think perhaps I scraped the surface of the quality produced and sold daily in the shop by already established artists and designers with successful careers.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read about my progress, let me know what you think!