laser-cutting

Final outcome:

I was quite pleased with the final outcome of my laser-cutting project, despite the fact that it might not have matched my original ambitions for the brief. I feel my result is quite bold and graphic, and conveys some of my personality as someone who, first and foremost, draws.

I was forced into a totally Illustrator-based drawing outcome because I lacked the technical knowledge to convert my drawings into something that would be able to undergo the laser-cutting process. As a beginner with the software, the task of vectorising, live-tracing and cropping my original drawings into functional components of a 3D object quickly became very hard to achieve due to my naivety of the process. Unfortunately, as I had waited until after the Illustrator skillsets to fully get to grips with the brief techincally, the window of time I had to learn these processes became quite narrow, and due to poor time management, I found myself unable to find any experienced technical advice on how to proceed. I didn't feel that I was totally unable to produce an outcome however, and resorted to alternative means to achieve my final end product.

The piece still fulfils the aim I set myself of having a three-tiered, semi-3D object, and each layer does add both to the aesthetic and the conceptual basis of the project. For having a very basic, perhaps imprecise, footing in Illustrator, I feel the shapes surrounding the central infinity icon add to the drama of it, and give the graphic a tongue-in-cheek, "exalted" personality. The sharp arrangements of vectors, as basic as they are, carry some of the allusions to science, atom-structure, and celestial patterns that I had hoped to include as part of the theme of infinity, and totality. Still, the piece isn't as sharp as I had hoped, and maybe if I had further understanding of the software I could have ended up with a richer, sleeker fulfilment of the brief.

I think my main issue was a slight intimidation at the technical processes behind it, although a relatively accurate outcome became achievable with some lateral thinking and some pragmatism. The printing process was still very difficult without any technical advice, and there were a number of trial runs before the final components were cut. As with the other digital media and craft projects, one of the main lessons I've learnt is to allow time for things to go wrong and to think adaptively when they do.