commission work out in the open

Just a quick blog post -between making a large amount of 'fort' candle holders, trying to gain interest in my work leading up to christmas and making some new prototypes for more storage ideas- to show a couple of photos of the award i made for a local business awards ceremony organised by the Eastern Daily Press newspaper and Lexia Media who commissioned me to make an environmental and sustainability award for the best performing company in this field in East Anglia.
  The photos were taken by local photographer Angie Sharpe (many thanks to her for letting me show the photos) and thanks to Archant publishing for releasing them.
  Its great to see the award i made with the finished brass plaque applied and given to the lucky winners. It looks great and i hope it will take pride of place in their office. One thing i did notice from looking at the photos was the amount of glare that the award got from the lights and camera flash. if you read my previous blog post you will realise i prempted this and was cautious about not putting too much of the gloss lacquer on the lighter coloured Ash wood. So it just goes to show that the designer has to think of every aspect of the design and project as a whole from materials and their interaction with the end user and enironment, to simple issues like size and colour.

 

 

so hopefully the more commissions i do i will be able to share the results and views on this blog and hopefully highlight the importance of why designers have to always be thinking ahead and of every eventuality. 

and the award goes too...

So if you have been following me on twitter you will know that i have been doing a little commission piece for a client and i can finally blog about it. I was approached by Lexia Media which is a PR and marketing company based in a beautiful town near me called Woodbridge. They wanted me to make an award for a business awards ceremony organised by a big local paper. The award would be presented to a company that have achieved outstanding environmental and sustainable targets in the year, hence why they wanted a locally sourced wooden award. So i naturally jumped at this chance as i also negotiated getting my name and details printed in the award ceremony brochure and the local paper as well which is distributed already the eastern counties. So it was a great opportunity to gain exsposure for my work and what im trying to do. Numerous email conversations then started with Lexia Media to workout what they wanted and how best to make this piece.

It is too date the smallest thing i have made which surprsingly created alot of headaches in itself, it might not look a technically challenging design but working out the angles and plaque sizes proved to be quite stressful at some points and the old 'making something for someone other than yourself' always adds a bit of pressure. The shape was decided from the outset as it had to fit in with the other awards being presented. But i advised them on material choice-which was Ash and Sapele- and the overall size. Once all this was done i started making it. This took longer than i thought and i also had to consider what finish would be applied as it could not be too glossy due to photographs being taken of it at the ceremony which would have reflected off it and made the plaque unreadable. But i was pleased with how it looked and also how i handled the smaller scale of this commission. I chose a spray on lacquer for the finish as this would give a high gloss professional finish and protect the wood. I thought that an oil finish would not be right for this commission and might not be a desirable look for this piece. The photos show the beautiful grain pattern of the sapele plinth which is great. Sapele wood still impresses me, such a versatile wood.

The photos show the piece without the plaque which apparently will be fitted onto it before the ceremony so i will hopefully post some images of it in the hands of the lucky winners soon. But alot of lessons were learned from this small commission, which will help me in future projects like liasing with clients and determining their exact requirements as early as possible and also talking to other people who may be involved, so i am aware of every eventuality and hence not get caught up or surprised with sudden changes.

I'm hoping this little piece will open more doors in my quest to do what i love.