Fare thee well

This will be my last post for... a while.
Starting a design firm, unfortunately a man needs to make money.

Thanks for enjoying the free designs, maybe we will see some on the market soon from anonymous idea thieving trolls. Just remember you saw them here first. ;)

-J

Pinard Clock (throwback)

So I saw a wicked clock in a movie (here) a few weeks ago and was amazed that afterwards, I realized I had no idea how the designer did it. Notice the arm has apparently nothing to make it move. Turns out it was designed by a famous illusionist (Houdin). So I took it upon myself to figure out just how the heck this guy did it... without using a Google search. Anyway after about 15 minutes of staring I finally figured it out. I was so impressed with the simple genius of it I decided to design this "throwback" to the Houdin clock. Mine makes the illusion a fair bit more obvious, but regardless, I am very happy with how it turned out. There would be four motors, two on either side, controlling the position of each hand. The time adjusters are located on the back, M for minutes and H for hours stupid. The unit would ideally be plugged into the wall, so as to avoid having those annoying dieing battery issues, and de-syncronyzing the motors.
If you haven't figured out the illusion from the images yet... good luck with life. ;)

Jinard iWare

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank web-help forums. spent a week in enraged misery solving my Photoshop issues. I have a few designs that have been waiting to make their debut.

Any way, I was thinking about making some eyewear based on the screwless are designs that are starting to pop up, of which of course there are a few (here) and (here). Though the funny thing is these bad boys still ended up with those annoying little fasteners on the side to hold the arm in place. Maybe just as a nod to the ancient eye-glass technology god... or not.
Either way I felt that adding a bit of a thick clunky look (the screws) would nicely offset the minimalistic frames... which of course are very, very minimal. I think we are safely to the point where the frames of glasses don't need to encompass the entire lens (and i mean material strength wise). So I give you iWare (yeah I called it that), the glasses that some how have both the thick look of the classic Raybans and the light airy feeling of frame-less glasses.
Enjoy.

Seriously, really happy I got my GD pscs5 workign again. (thanks Tim Hendry)

Jigsaw Cutlery

Had trouble sleeping last night because of this idea. I still haven't got the fork prongs exactly how I had envisioned them, but close enough. This set is meant to fit together via the cut-aways like a jigsaw puzzle, except nothing like a jigsaw puzzle. Also the fork looks more like a spork.

Computer Finger Print

Like the background?
Admittedly I could have made the pattern line up a bit better, but I am more interested in explaining it.

A few years ago I was messing around with photoshop, trying to see what the program was capable of. After a while I got bored and decided to use the Blur tool on the work I had just done. Hmm and whats that? The sharpen tool? would that restore the image? nope.

But what if I re Blur and sharpen again... and again... and yeah we get it. Thus the "computer finger print" was birthed.

Try it yourself, It is amazing the types of patterns that appear!
Mind you this is just a tiny fraction of the original Image... maybe 1/100th? You gotta zoom in a bit depending on your dpi.

Enjoy!

hm actually now that I think about it, the pattern is actually quite remarkable. Its sort of like order out of chaos. or something ha.

Not Your Dad's Plywood Speakers

Dads..Dad's?
Anyway, I had come up with this idea during my headphone rampage. I figured why not change it up a bit... ish.
A bent plywood backing (may make a square shaped one so don't get any thoughts!)
Cut a hole.
Put ball-bearing clasp.
Mount Speaker.

Something like that..

So essentially the back post, when twisted and turned, changes the orientation of the front speaker in relation to the backing. This will (theoretically) change the way the sound bounces off the back plywood wall, while simultaneously changing the direction of the forward wave. Maybe making some interesting sound variations...maybe. If you think a diagram might better inspire your taste buds I can post one after on request.

Hopefully this commercial I did in photoshop reads like a comic ish.
(Open image in new tab to view larger)

Pulse Speaker. - Jeff Pinard - Samuel (no consent) Jackson

Side note: I just came up with an idea.. the back ply could be bent in some sort of compound way so that when you rotate the speaker, the reflected sound is completely different, thus creating a different effect ie, more hollow or a warmer sound. Is that possible? or would you have to offset the speakers rotation ?

You?

B-17 Headphones

So I designed some more headphones...

Wood headphones

Check it. V

• Lachlan Mcvie why are there no fasteners holding the earcups in place? I could believe the foam is held on w/ adhesives, but those small mounting points arent going to hold themselves in place...come on Jeff....think manufacturability! :p
  lol fresh design tho

  Jinard Design T shaped sandwiched between the two ply's maybe? should be strong enough to told it in place.
• Jinard Design Yeah, so bent ply is drilled with a recessed hole. T bracket with ball is put through, than outer ply is laminated over top to hide the fastener and will hold it in place. What do you think?

Its been a while

Hello friends.

I have been pretty busy with a number of design projects including, a new way to open your garage door, a redesign of the "WARP" by Pika technologies, redesigning the cutlery line to be more easily mass produced and completed a few more pages on the graphic novel.

I managed to take some time to update the headphones I posted a few weeks ago. They are not yet finished, but I can show the progress regardless.
Also for all you weather enthusiasts, it just snowed here in Toronto for the first time this year... shit. Is it possible to get just a little bit more global warming, then pump the brakes mother nature?
Terrible, I kid.

Water Jugs

Jugs for ice water at dinner...'Nuff said

Fuel the concerts

As Ottawa's Bluesfest finished with a bang, literally (link) I came up with an idea that really doesnt relate to the stage falling down at all. The idea did however correspond the the festivals constant reminder to the crowd that it is one of the "Greenest" outdoor music festivals in the world. Interesting. It was honestly hard to tell. Apart from the cup suckers, lack of garbage on the ground and references to "less pollution emitting generators" the push to promote its greenly-ness fell relatively flat.
So alas my idea. In an effort to reduce strain on the grid, or fossil fuels needed in the hybrid generators, why not power the festival by (partly) using the crowd! Get the people to feel like they are contributing while just doing exactly what they would do anyway during an outdoor festival... (not drinking by the way)... Walking!
For some time a technology has existed that can harness human weight. Yes, simply stepping on the device will generate electricity. Take a look (here). Now imagine if rolls of this pressure absorbing marvel of engineering could be rolled out in strategic locations during a concert. The jumping, the shifting of weight while you fight to see through the 6ft5 tall guy in front of you and yes even the crowd surfing could all be harnessed. Pair that with letting the crowd know they are making a difference and people will jump and stomp for no other reason than to see what happens!
Even still we could take that thought a step further, these pads could actually be associated with some sort of effect, lighting? louder music? to give the crowd feed back for their actions.

Who knows maybe one day concerts could be literally powered by the fans. Neat concept right?

Here is a picture of something to make the article more interesting visually... its a colouring marker.



Jeff Pinard
ID

Scissors

Spent the day coming up with a few concepts. I think I am going to revisit this one, I have had so many other ideas already to improve them. Take a look:

Kúla

So some of you may have seen my previous chair post. After some great suggestions and realizations, it became apparent that the sphere chair design wasn't fully resolved. Even though it was just a concept rendering, realistically something like that would be expensive to produce. So drawing inspiration from the inner bent wood, I came up with the kúla chair.
The intention behind this one was to make it relatively cheap and easy to produce. Two bent plywood (bamboo) legs, two bent metal supports and one formed plastic seat (with ribbing underneath). Idealy the entire thing would be held together by 14 (ish) wing nuts on bolts, thus making it easy to disassemble.
Feel free to comment, I am not entirely sure if something similar already exists on the market, if so please msg me I would love to see how they resolved it!

Round Deux

So many suggestions. I should have finished the entire set before sending it off. More practical now and with spoon! Thanks for all the comments, I really enjoyed the Klingon comparison! For those loyal followers (you know who you are) I am actually posting a nearly completed project :o . Looks like the cutlery generated more interest than I had anticipated. So please take a look a the refined version. And no, I am not changing the lines to match the knife.
see any grammar errors? squint.

Jeff Pinard

Eye Em Know Stylist

As I progress through my design "career" I have slowly started to notice my design preferences. After taking a long hard look at a set of headphones designed by the solidworks team I began to realize, no way in hell I would have come up with anything similar to that. Dozens of surface changes, dongles that have in-explicable purposes, buttons, fasteners, material changes and the list goes on. The resulting product looked extremely impressive. This however is not the type of product I would design on my own. I'm sure if a client were to ask for something similar I would be able to complete it, however, I am no stylist. There were so many people in my graduating class that could make the simplest of things look extremely cool and complex. The left side of my brain could never fathom the answer to the question "but why". Although designing things to look extremely bad-ass may serve to impress us visually, again there is no utilitarian purpose. So begins the dilemma. Does good design need to have extreme styling to better improve the visual component? Or is less always more. Well turthfully its both. I mean Oakley seems to be doing quite well, and most of their products have what I like to call an "excessivism" look (design that takes the most complex path to function). Anyway my point is that I have begun to realize that my personal style is fairly simple and I enjoy design that doesn't require a redundant surface change to make it look interesting. I came up with this headphone idea. Bent wood, Some sort of fabric (the computer calls it potato sack) I'll call it old man hat fabric. Rounded (metal) ear pieces, and ear cushions that remind me of yacht seats for some reason. Now I am not saying my shit is better than oakleys stuff http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/sunglassesgiant/Oakley-Plate-Sunglasses-3.jpg, or even the other head phones I saw http://www.yankodesign.com/2011/06/09/hardcore-headphones/... just that I tend to gravitate toward the simpler style. Any thoughts?


Oh also keep in mind those headphones in the link are designed to completion (mine are just a 3d sketch)

SpiderMau5

So I entered the Deadmau5 design a helmet contest with spidermau5. here it is!
I will keep you posted on how it does. The main prize is something like paid air fair to LA to see a show. Funny because he is from Toronto, exactly where I live now. I am not sure where to vote, I think its on facebook or something, but hey, wish me luck! Pretty stoked about this.

Chair

Screw it, against my better judgement I am posting the teaser. The patent's pending anyway. A cool chair concept I thought up while seconds away from falling asleep. This is getting rather annoying. I would prefer inspiration to hit while fully conscious. This was originally supposed to be a rocking chair. I think that will come next. Seriously, I am putting next to no effort into this post, its 25 degrees and sunny out.

O yeah, plastic with curved ply wood (birch) inside. Enjoy.

Jeff Pinard

SQUEEGiT Promo

Hello again fans. I have been extremely busy working on SQUEEGiT related branding as a promotional item. It looks like there are serveral companies now that have made some generous orders to use it for trade shows, giveaways and things of that nature. During this period I have been also working on some other designs including a chair, speakers and other top secret ideas. You have to realize of course that I am using this blog as an online sketch book. Aside from my portfolio I will not be posting projects in their entirety. Also I am still debating on whether or not certain projects I think are actually sell-able will be posted.

But anyway here is a preview of what the squeegit could look like with your logo on it.
Interested? www.cleanergear.com I am pretty sure custom logo orders have to be over 500 units.

Also take a look at this video, but don't blink!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72S6vsNdON8

Bike Concept

Hello dedicated followers and accidental finders. I have spent about a day and a half sketching up my latest idea. It is a Fixed gear with a hand clutch. Essentially it would allow you to cost when you engage the clutch (located as a twist mechanism on the left handle.) Dont ask me why this is needed, or beneficial, I just thought it would be interesting. As you release the clutch, the front gear would slowly engage, this could be used as a primitive and somewhat inconvenient brake system. I have come up with (what I think) is a unique way of doing this. I hate the word basically because it is over used, however, basically, the front gear acts as a fly wheel. When the clutch is engaged, it pulls the gear inward, leaving the pedals free to spin on their own. In fixed gear mode, the front gear would press back against the pedal arms, forcing the pedals to turn the pulley resulting in forward momentum! There would need to be some sort of spring mechanism inside the bike that is strong enough to force the front gear to say pressed up against the pedal arms. So if you didn't understand any of that, you aren't alone. I will attach a picture.
the second interesting this with this bike concept, is the adjustable seat and front forks. If you notice the little holes, the front mount/seat will be able to slide along and re attach itself in those positions. This would result in changing: the seat height, the overall bike length and the distance from the rider to the handle bars.
As you can clearly see it is far from complete. I wanted to post my progress. Might put the final renderings in my portfolio. And if none of this made any sense what so ever, it is because I wasn't able to provide hand gestures while explaining it... probably

MiniGhetoBlaster

So I have had this idea for a while now. I think it may have come to me on the cusp of falling asleep. Its funny how that seems to happen. I think I get my most interesting ideas right as sleep graps my face and says, see you tomorrow. Usually I don't remember half of them, I up thinking, shit, I know there was something I wanted to remember. Anyway, here they are. Not finished yet of course. I will start with a brief description then explain what needs finishing. Essentially the bar across the top can pivot like a regular ghetto blaster handle. The right hand square-like hole is a docking station for your smart phone, ipod etc. The top knob controls a clasping mechanism made from rubber. As you turn it counter clock wise, it pinches the device into place. Once the device is connected, the bottom knob controls the volume. Pretty straight forward. The things its missing are extensive. I mean ideally there would be some sort of universal connector which allows you to hook up your device to the speaker. The pivoting handle needs to show the actual pivot points, because i don't think they would be flush like that. The rubber pincher could also be hidden behind the wood paneling to make the product look a lot cleaner. And the speakers.... well again i'm sure there are a number of tweaks that can/will be made. Anyway, I still think its pretty decent for about an hour and a half of work.

Jeff Pinard

Banners

So its been a few days since my last post. I must say I have been busy with several projects, including reviving the longboard business, the graphic novel/making it sellable and intensive job hunting. I am putting these ones up just to keep my two dedicated followers up to date on my designing.
the SQUEEGiT will soon be hitting the blogs and websites finally with a small marketing budget. I have thrown together these two banners in Solidworks/keyshot/photoshop. Admittedly like most of my semi-completed projects (the cutlery) they still need some work. the perspective is a bit off on the wiped line, the fonts etc. Any here they are 100% computer generated. I think they look dammed real enough, although i doubt anyone could get a real squeegit to balance like that.
Jeff Pinard.































http://www.germwarz.com/

And the Cutlery Obsession Continues

Jeff Pinard Design.

Fork You

Refined cutlery at top of blog. + spoon!

Cutlery

These days I seem to be finding the more simple objects the most interesting to design. This might be because it is more form based, and you have a lot more freedom to actually make practical designs from far fetched concepts. This semi-set of cutlery was actually inspired by a couple things. The first being a pen I designed a few months back (see portfolio page). The second thing I drew inspiration from was the Katana (Japanese Sword). It some how reminds me of an angled bone like structure, possibly the jaw of a wale? In any case, I wanted to see what it would look like in utensil size. Idealy the blade would be sharp all the way past where it is fastened in place. The bend wood/carbon fiber, protects the users hands.
As far as the fork is concerned, I do know it looks far less elegant. In fact I would almost call it a "Solidworks sketch". this is because I was really just fooling around with shapes while I modeled it. Funny enough that segues into a topic that I really need to address. "Solidworks sketching".
I know im going to get shit for this one, but here it is. I really think that sketching and conceptualizing products using primarily solidworks has been crucified for far too long. These CAD programs have become so powerful that they are nearly (and i mean NEARLY) making had sketching obsolete. Granted, I did/do rough out most of my product before CAD, but primarily they really only come to life once I get modeling. Lets examine, many people say that sketching gives you the general idea much faster furthermore, it is far more versatile in terms of where/how it can be done. I do agree, yet to reiterate my point, once 3D modeling can be easily done on tablet devices (ipad etc.) look out. I think think this kind of mobile CAD will take over. I say stop pissing on people who use CAD more then sketching, get with the times, there is more then one way to transfer an idea from your brain to the world.

Jeff Pinard.

Thesis

I had been meaning to post this a long time ago. very kool site, featured my thesis last year.
http://www.greendiary.com/tags/jeff-pinard/
They do a pretty good job of explaining it. The article confuses the back and front of the board though... I wanted to go on a small rant on that topic, since the writer never contacted me to find out anything about the project, or myself or get permissions; however, they did a great job and I am glad to see that they took an interest. I can say first hand that doing thesis along with a full school load, social responsibilities and drinking are not an easy set of things to balance. Its really too bad that a lot of these projects go un-noticed. Come out and support the 4th year students at Humber College. Wed. April 20th at Artscape Wychwood Barns. Toronto.


Jeff Pinard.

Product converting

So this is just a few of the products i have began to model/render for the graphic novel project. Most of them are lacking heavy detailing. this is because the styling covers most of it anyway. The trick is to get just enough detailing that you can see it, but not so much that you bust your ass for nothing. Eventually I will post a few shots of how they turned out after converted. Stay tuned.

2 Day Marathon

So it is official, doing the graphics for the novel has not only been extremely addictive but highly time consuming. The full novel sans-pictures is about 50 odd pages (minus the fluff and chapter titles). So far, I have gotten through 2. Two of these pages translating into roughly 6 illustrated pages. My god this is going to be a monumental task. Yesterday I sat down at 11am, started illustrating around 12pm. the next thing i knew, my roommate was home from work at 11pm, went to bed at about 2am. I must say though its pretty dammed fun! Am i concerned that i could have been spending all that time searching for a job, or busting my ass flipping burgers at McDonald? heck no. This recent passion I have discovered is amazing and I will ride until, arthritis wont let me click the mouse.
here are the samples... enjoy!
also, captain Kirk has a camio... but not really, hes just a place holder for now, until i can convince Shatner to let me use him... or whoever Kirk answers to..
(yes that is also John con)


Jeff Pinard,
Industrial Designer