that last
drawing patrick made is almost what it should be! nice idea to put the flowers 'out of the box'. to my opinion the form of the 'flowerholder' is to weak; imagine that the porcelaine or ceramic vase and base or ok (is the vase and base one or two separate items?); and this flowerholder in plastic; in different colors (even fluorescent or even fosforescent?), annually to be reviewed (following the newest trends in colors or in different colors matching the flowers the customers want to put in, or following the season; white winter, brown fall, green spring, yellow summer?) in not only one form but different ones and then i am more thinking of a 'freeform' like bourroullecs 'algues' (for vitra) kind of forms. The division; there was said 6,, 12 etc why not symbolic 7 (one flower for each day)
No wonder you can build a web site as good as this one....
You are gifted at integrating components.
I like both your original idea and this synthesis.
The original idea still grabs me more as a form, as it does James, too.
The synthesis grabs me more as a device for holding flowers.
I could see the former selling as piece of contemporary modernist design.
I could see the latter selling in large volume at a nursery or florist shop, where the flower's the thing. I don't share James concern that it is a shortcoming that if you break one piece, the rest is useless, at least from a marketing stand point. People buy multi-part goods in which breaking one part renders the rest useless without replacing the broken part. My coffee pot is useless if I break the caraffe...until I replace it.
FWIW, my cat is sitting on my lap as I type and he is looking very suspiciously at your most recent version. Its the same look he gets when he's around our Koen-designed flower vase. Cat frustration is VERY interesting...so little gets to them you know. 🙂
I like the...
idea of putting flowers on the outside...at least it is not...just another vase. But I think it should be pushed further. As you point out already Patrick, the "double" shape is not very convincing and many people will not see the possibility because it looks to much like a vase on a saucer.
The geometrical shape I think is to geometrical. My existing product has the same disadvantage. As all geometrical shapes it attracts the eye because it is so easy to understand as a shape, so...takes too much of the viewer's attention. I agree with Gerrit on that one, but I think it should be even more accidental as the "Bourrallec weed" which is neither or. It is not organic...as in nature, nor accidental as in random, not well shaped as in designed...so it is basically a nuisance for the eye. (which does not exclude that it can be attractive to the mind) say in a similar way as a murder is a tragedy, but a reconstructed murder on the movie screen can be and intersting start for an intriging story. I am sending a picture of a plate with a "random" stick-pattern. Too bussy for our porpose but an illustration of what Imean with "random"
Technically the open shapes of Gerrit's proposal are of course a lot easier to do as the loops that Patrick proposes. It can be don (look at some cuphandles) but to repeat it a number of times in one shape is to repeat the degree of difficulty or rejects...
A final note: I find small cut-outs to hold that grid not good enough. We started of with rods, too high too small in diameter, that does not mean that we can not keep them...lower, but still recognisable as little rods. Withoiut the grid the small cut outs look silly, without the grid, the small rods are still an interesting ending of a vase. If the grid that we put on top is made of superposed rods of the same diameter as the upright ones, I think you might get quite an interesting top where vertical elements cross horisontal ones to form a three dimensional play of cylindrical rods...
I will make and send a sketch but right now I have to get back to work!
One last note... It does not matter if Koen likes the vase or not. The joy of producing something is not in the result but in the actual work. But I do not anticipate an unattractive result, considering that every contribution aims at improuving the product. I am looking forward to the comments of Olive's friend.
and why don't we let some...
and why don't we let some creativity at the user? instead of making a freeform divider in plastic or ceramic; we could give them a steelwire that they can bend like they want (something like those tinny steelwires surrounded by plastic, i don't know the name for it but overhere we use that to close the garbagebags); or another idea make the base flat; it is then for dried flowers and we give a rope, then the user can use the rope to make some kind of hinges in the holes, pff difficult to explain; see the croquis.
gerrit...
i know your comment about bringing the buyer in on the creativity was directed at the vase, but...
I think you have a concept that would be wonderful for a whole line of goods, or a whole company of goods. Why are we having such fun here? Because we are getting to collaborate in the creation of something. Wouldn't it be great to commission designers to design products intended to allow the buyer to collaborate with the designer in some sense? People personalize all kinds of products they buy after they buy them anyway. Wouldn't it be interesting to design the collaboration of personalization in so to speak?
Yep, SDR, marketing geeks would love this tie...
because it could be tied to a lot of human emotions that they are adroit at manipulating. But we can't let the fear of marketing whoredom channel us away from creativity and fun. The marketing whores twist everything--the uncreative and boring, as well as the creative and the fun.
Dear James, thanks for...
Dear James, thanks for expressing your opinion so clearly. The multiplication of loose parts could be problematic indeed, but I imagined the saucer and base as one part. It is obviously difficult to find a radically new solution to answer a function that Koen and others have already brilliantly solved, this is why, I found interesting to add a new dimension by using the outside of the vase.
Hey, Martin I hope that you are better! I simply use photoshop. It is not the most adapted software, but it is easier for me to use a software that I know well rather than to learn how to use Google SketchUp or any other basic 3d software.
Gerrit, thank you very much for your proposals. I really like the idea of a grid with a "random" pattern or at least a more abstract one. The contrast with the very structured aspect of the base of the vase could be interesting. Your drawing with the rope gave me an idea (probably unrealizable) that I will submit here soon.
Dc Wilson, I hope that one will be able to make the synthesis between "a piece of contemporary modernist design" and "a device for holding flowers". I liked the direct and formally simple aspect of my first proposal, but one of the benefits of the exercise we are doing here is that the addition of each of our competences makes it possible to point out the functional defects and the obstacles in the production. I thought it was useful to show that the original drawing shouldn't be respected too much. In twenty years of artistic career, I learned that one shouldn't hesitate to explore hazardous tracks away from the original sketch, even if one returns later to the original idea. In my artistic work, it is what I call "my controlled skids". It is precisely what occurs here. Koen's last sketch brings back elements of the first drawing, but his project integrates the possibility of using the outside of the vase which appeared when I took liberties with the first draft. These round trips between creative excesses and rational rigour make all the beauty and the dynamics of a creative process.
Olive, great idea! It would be fantastic if your friend could react. I searched on the web a forum with people passionate of floral arrangement to invite them to take part in the project, but I didn't find anything. If somebody knows a forum or a site on the subject, I would be happy to get the info. It would be an ideal way to add to the dimension "inspired by the consumer/user" mentioned by SDR.
cont.
Koen, thank you very much for this solution, much, much more elegant than my "saucer base". The vase has now an architectural strength like an ancient fortress or a lighthouse in the sea. I have a few questions concerning the stoneware ring. On your drawing, it seem that there is not much space left to introduce the stems of the flowers into the interstices. Do I misinterpret the drawing? The diameter of the ring seems to coincide with the diameter of the base to form a virtual cylinder. The idea is attractive but don't you fear that it prevents the floral arrangement from opening harmoniously?
I am working on an idea that could integrate your proposals and that of Gerrit for a less formal aspect, integrating a kind of controlled random for the "flowers organizer".
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