3D Printed Typographic Cufflink Prototypes

Andrew Walker designs typographic art for 3D printing using Blender. In this video he discusses his latest designs which were commisioned by a museum in the Netherlands (congratulations on that, by the way!!). I asked him about how he uses Blender - read on below.

Andrew writes:

I got into Blender for all the wrong reasons. I wasn't a 3D designer, I hadn't made anything in 3D since 1995 using a dodgy copy of Specular Infini-D 2.0 which I'd 'borrowed' from another student on my multimedia postgrad, along with the full set of Kai's Power Tools and Photophop 2.5. I never really did anything with it except render shapes which I used in animations for Macromedia Director. I've mostly been a web designer, I mostly only worked in Illustrator and Flash. I was a total, hopeless 3D newbie.

And then I discovered Blender. [...] So far, I’m totally hooked – it’s really effective for making 3D printable models quickly.

The problem I faced was this. I'm inspired by 3D printing. It offers the chance for graphic designers to create real products, which is way cooler than something that only lives on a screen. However I quickly learned that you can't really 3D print anything more complex than an extruded SVG without controlling variables which are specific to the materials you're printing, tolerances, clearances, wall thicknesses etc. That's really important to remember because extruded slabs of stuff aren't sexy, they don't use 3D printing's unique features, it's just a way to mimic basic cnc routing which didn't really work for the stuff I wanted to produce. That meant I had to get into proper 3D modelling.

I didn't want to fork out for an expensive software package, I only had a Macbook Air and so many packages out there require a massive PC or a mortgage to buy something that's the equivalent of Adobe Creative Suite - which we all know costs a fortune and most people only ever need to use Photoshop or Illustrator anyway. Also, I wanted a 3D program like Illustrator, something which gave you fine controls but didn't dump a ton of complicated shit between you and your ideas the way that Photoshop does. I looked into 3D Studio Max and it was just way too complex. And then I discovered Blender. It looked a lot friendlier, it's free and more importantly, everyone online who was geeky about 3D printing seemed to love it. So far, I'm totally hooked - it's really effective for making 3D printable models quickly.

I'm currently modelling a range of 3D typographic cufflinks and jewellery. I've seen lots of typographic stuff 3D printed, but they all share the basic problem of fixing the letters to a back plate and extruding the characters from that - or, as in my early 3D experiments, the characters are joined together in an unnatural way, creating joined-up handwriting ligatures and sticking them unnaturally to font letter shapes, which doesn't really work unless it's the Maserati logo (or that style). For me, that doesn't show the type to it's full effect because 'real' type floats, it's not extruded or carved unless it's on a classical stone building. Type floats on the screen. It floats on buildings. It floats in speech bubbles. It floats on a hillside in Hollywood. I wanted to make typographic jewellery that did that.

Blender is brilliant for that kind of modelling. Okay, the font tools in Blender aren't very effective, it's much quicker to use Illustrator to make an SVG of the characters you want. Once you've done that, take the SVG into Blender and turn them into meshes. From there, building the linking structures is easy using default mesh objects. Controlling measurements is easy, rotating, sizing, connecting and joining the objects together to form a manifold, printable STL is very simple. I've spent years trying to slot together the right digital production tools to deliver quality results cost-effectively, and I doubt you could beat the Illustrator / Blender combo to make this kind of product. All on an 11-inch Macbook Air. Amazing.

I think that shows [...] why the open source, software as a service, on-demand world is going to kill off the big budget, complex infrastructures of traditional manufacturing.

Right now I'm using the boolean difference modifier very effectively too, it's a very quick way to create a hollow shape with 2mm thick walls. That's really important because the cost of a 3D print object is dependent on volume, so the less material you use, the lower the production costs. I know booleans are bit of a cheat and serious 3D modellers will be cringing at the thought of using them rather than actually building things properly from vertices etc... but fuck it - I'm not trying to be a great 3D modeller, I'm just trying to make cufflinks and necklaces. In the same way that I've modified my designs to work with the materials on offer at Shapeways, I'm applying a practical production mindset to making 3D product prototypes and whatever works is good enough for now.

I have a mate who is a serious product developer (he makes consumer electronic stuff) and he laughed when I told him I was into Blender, saying "Oh is that still around?". Yeah. He has a supply chain from China, India, the USA to sell speakers in Scotland, with dozens of factories and supplies around the world. He's got a budget to fund a room full of quad processing workstations. I've got a Macbook Air and a free copy of Blender. He's spent years studying, I'm a clumsy amateur. We're both making plastic stuff. I think that shows what an awesome bit of kit Blender is, how brilliant the Shapeways service is - and why the open source, software as a service, on-demand world is going to kill off the big budget, complex infrastructures of traditional manufacturing - in the same way it gutted the publishing business and is currently driving a stake through the heart of broadcast TV production and advertising too.

As soon as I sell something I'm donating to Blender. I remember Kai Krause from Meta Creations (back in the early 90s) once saying that he didn't care if people ripped off his software, just pay for it when you start making money from using it. I think that's the same vibe I get from Blender. I'm a big fan ;)

Link

• UniquePlastique shop on Shapeways
• Andrew's website