PROJECT VORONOI
The aim of this project is to continue developing effective working practices in design, specifically with regards to design for manufacture.
RESEARCH
The aesthetic transformation of iPhone 6 is advocated as a wrap-around body style with soft, rounded corners and a curved glass screen, which was designed to be bend down around all edges of the phone that melds smoothly into the thin metal body of the device to meet the edges of the bezel and smooth aluminium chassis. These curved edges achieved a rounded texture that users will feel the edges which its curvature is mostly the one they appreciate most. The volume and power buttons on the device are also designed as pill-shaped. These make the style of iPhone 6 remarkably smoother, gentler and visually pleasing.
In order to coincide with the aesthetics of Iphone 6, key features as curves and smooth shape were identified from Iphone 6 for the design of phone dock and phone case in this design project.
Many natural phenomena are displayed as polygonal patterns, such as ground surface texture, animal fur and flower inflorescences. In mathematical viewpoint it’s called the Voronoi diagram, the tessellation which divide a space into cells corresponding to a given set of locations. The pattern can be quite different ,depending on the value set.
Voronoi diagram is applied in spatial design and product design project increasingly as its superior aesthetic performance. The above image is a good example, which shows the rounded and smooth feature, and it’s suitable in combination with iphone 6 style. Therefore, this Voronoi diagram would be used as the important reference in the design project.
The initial idea was searching element from nature, which contains a large number of Voronoi pattern. Biomimetic design and natural imitation design soon became the direction. Icebergs and stones were the main simulation object at the beginning, while the desk surface could be recognized as waster surface or land surface, like a micro landscape scene been put on the desk. Stones later were adopted as the final one, because they are relatively smooth, with smooth surface and rounded corners which were more in line with the style of iphone 6.
CONCEPT GENERATION
Different shape and angles of the stones have been drawn for trying to find the most pleasing one to the eye and suitable shape for iPhone 6. In this stage, the manufacturing limitations were the main barrier of finding the beautiful shape as which usually need adductive ending outline, or the stones would look like been squashed. Besides sketch, some 3D models also been built for checking the detail of shapes.
During the design process of mobile phone case, different kinds of pattern have been tried. At the beginning, some of sketches were been drawn, attempting to meet the same style of phone dock by changing its thickness, curvature and density. Later, simulative effects have been tried on Photoshop. Mirrored patterns are particular considered for further development as they looked quite meet the phone dock. However, when it progress to 3D model building, the mirrored pattern were too neat to meet expect. Some rhythm is needed. The final design was completed directly in Pro engineer.
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