collage and chair design

Here’s a closer look at the collage I created for the “client pages” page I’ve been working on.

I created it to communicate a little about the typical process of designing a piece for a client. In this case the piece was to be a chair in the Biedermeier  style to accompany the desk, armoir, bed and two night stands I had already designed and built. I worked with an interior designer hired by the client whom I had been working with for some time and she gave me the basic criteria and some ideas about the design concerns.

I found several images from various sources and created some quick sketches based on these historical examples. We had a meeting, the interior designer and I with the client and I was able to narrow down what the client wanted. Based on this discussion I drew a set of scaled, hard line drawings and eventually a color rendering using colored pencils, ink and water colors.  The client was happy with this design and I was able to proceed to doing the final shop drawings and fabrication.

I’ve been using a computer 3D modeling program for some time, Rhinoceros, and  a rendering program called Flamingo to generate the rendered images, however at the time I designed this chair I was not familiar with the program enough to be  able to quickly sketch out the ideas I had from my research so I relied on my earlier skills with pencil and ink. The important thing is to communicate as clearly as possible to a client what you are thinking and to be able to listen very closely to their response. I feel that it is very important to put as much care and attention into this phase of a project as I try and do with the fabrication and finishing. I hope that this collage will help communicate this to prospective clients.

web site progress

I’ve been working on the mock-up for my “client pages” landing page. The plan is to allow clients that want one to have a web page on my site on which I will post design images, details and related links to their project. They will then be able to post feedback to me any time they want and they will be able to share this page with friends and family to get their feedback. The whole point is to improve and sharpen the communication between my clients and myself particularly during the early stages of the design process.

I also want to develop a way to engage the secondary customer, the spouse, close friend or other person that my primary customer will likely seek approval from for their investment.

I am also creating a database of my work with associated images, bid spread sheets, product name, product ID number related thumbnail images, etc. I’ve looked at a lot of options for applications to help and have decided to stick with Excel to create a spreadsheet/ database and use Windows Explorer to add key words, i.e. product ID numbers, to the image files. This means that I have to save all the images that will be uploaded to my new web site as jpeg files. I use Paint Shop Pro to edit the images and optimize them to a resolution of 29 pixels/inch as well as to minimize the colors used. I cannot use PSP to add key words though because if I do it wipes out the key words Windows had as well as  the key words Picasa, another image sorting application I use, uses.

It became tiresome entering all of the file paths and file names into the spread sheet as Windows Explorer only allows you to copy the path, then to separately copy the file name. I decided to nose around a little on the web and I found this cool utility that adds an option to copy the path (with file name) onto the clipboard when you right click a file in Windows Explorer. It’s called ClipboardPath.  It saves a lot of time and aggravation.

web site progress

I’ve been working on the heart of my new web site, the portfolio. The biggest problem I have is that I have a lot of images of my work that fall into a variety of categories. Part of what I’m trying to do is generate orders for furniture that I’ve already designed and made, that I have worked out the various jigs and templates needed to make the work and that I can therefore offer for sale at prices lower than I would have to charge if I were to make just one of these designs. I also want to generate more commission orders, which are my bread and butter. I would also like to show my sculptures and sell some of them through the site.

Although this could be confusing and may be on my current site I am hoping to create something of a synergistic effect on my new site, carefully threading between the Charybdis of confusion and the Scylla of too categorical and didactic approach, so that viewers will get excited, or at least very interested in my work, whether they want a made to order, already designed piece or a custom designed commission piece.

I do have to set up the categories though. Art is self explanatory. I am characterizing the work I’ve done for other people as “previous commission work”. A little long, but some people have told me that they weren’t sure what I meant when I showed them pieces as “commission work”. The next category is a little trickier. I am calling it “current designs”. This will be the work that I have developed the production processes for and will initially sell on a made to order basis. Any pieces that sell well will be further developed so that I will have some level of inventory, at least of major components, so that I can ship orders quicker.

There is another category that I will slip into the current designs category, these are pieces that I have designed and not yet built but will sell at a price point as if I’ve already done the preliminary development on. I also would like to show sketches and design ideas. These are to spark new commissions by again developing an interest. Right now I’m not sure how I’ll display that material.

The portfolio page as I see it now will have a “nav bar” under the main heading that essentially has the three main “tags” for the categories plus a “show all” “tag”. Clicking on any of these will sort the thumbs that run vertically on the left. Clicking on a thumb on the far left will bring the data and images associated with that thumb into the central section that “floats” more or less in the vertical center of the screen as the page is scrolled. At least, that’s the idea. I’ve sent Nate my mock-ups, I’m sure he’ll be busy for a while.

new web site progresses

Today I have to refine the design of how I’ll present the images and information in the portfolio section of my site, my new site, the one I’m working to get up soon.

Right now I have someone who is doing the actual html coding. I’m creating mock-ups of the pages in Paint Shop Pro-5. I add a layer with notes and comments about how I want the page to look and where the links should go.

Something like this. I send Nate, my computer wiz, the file and associated image files and creates the page in html.

To work out how I want the site to be organized I am using FreeMind, a mind mapping app. to map out the links, write notes about content and to keep a focus on my goals for the site.

You can learn more about FreeMind at SourceForge.

One of the things I’m trying very hard to do for this site is to focus on specific goals for the site. First of all this site is a site for my business and should contribute to adding to my bottom line. I polled past customers about what they would like to have seen on my current website when they visited it and got some eye opening answers. One that stood out was that it wasn’t immediately clear what I do. Another comment was that they were not sure where I was located and since they wanted to do business locally that was very important to them.  Those were great comments and I am doing what I can to address them on my new site.

It is very tempting to try and create a really slick, very cool, very hip site. My focus on this site however is to be as clear as possible to potential clients how I can benefit them. My prime benefit to 90% of my clients is that I can design and make for them something that they have not been able to find anywhere else. There is a lot more that I offer and once someone has done business with me they often soon realize that. They begin to get a sense of some of the wealth of non-tangible  value that I can offer, part of what I hope to communicate on my new site is exactly that. More on that later.

Now I have to work out a clear way of presenting work I have done in the past in such a way that someone will get the message that I can do their project as well. I also want to show some designs that I will be selling on a made-to-order basis that will not only be practical pieces but also give much of intangible value custom work can give. I also want to put up some rough designs and sketches that may spark an interest in someone. Maybe someone is looking for something but they can’t quite articulate exactly what it is. If they see some of my rougher ideas they may interpret that image in a way that allows them to form a clear idea of just what they had been looking for. OK, that’s a little  inarticulate on my part but this is something I hope to be writing more about.