HD/West Elm Student Product Design Competition

This project was a submission to the West Elm 2021 Design Contest. The prompt was to create a family of commercial/residential designs including a ceiling light , a sconce, a desk light and a room light that would work in multiple environments. These designs should reflect “West Elm” aesthetic and design philosophies. This is a less rigid project and does not require electrical diagrams or manufacturing drawings: It was an expression of creativity in matching a similar style. I choose my theme to be Industrial Bug themed. Upon reflection, this is a blunder.

Every piece began as a .SLDASM file in solidworks. When the dimensions were set, they were converted into .stl files to be opened in Blender. Blender’s more powerful rendering engine will allow us to compile and dress the components for final rendering.
There were three main factors influencing my design choices: consideration for neutrality, consideration for variable light output, and limited design experience. With the bug theme in mind, I choose shaders that would open and close depending on the desired light level. I wanted my design to reflect my background as an engineer, and so was as manufacturable as cheap as possible. Which once again was a blunder. Unintentionally, I had made a light for people who only enjoyed brutalist minimalism.
To improve this design, it may have made sense to explore more ‘variety’ of shapes. The concern of how easy it would be to make constrained the creative liberties I could have taken. I would like to rework these pieces for a second render and while no further submission is possible.