We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer about their original and creative design work. is an award-winning creative designer, that makes our world a better place with their original works.
("") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work . Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
: Design for laser cut decorative panels depicting New Zealand native birds in their natural New Zealand habitat as well as incorporating iconic features such as Mt Cook and Cathedral Cove.
: I wanted to portray movement and energy within an otherwise flat piece of metal.
: I am keen to experiment more with lineal effect to see if I can create more 3D like forms within the flat panel.
: Each panel took approximately two days to complete
: I was commissioned to come up with 3 new designs based around Kingfishers and Cathedral Cove, Morepork and Kiwi, and Kea and Mt Cook.
: I designed these panels for a company to use as part of their product range of decorative panels
: I wanted to break away from the more static style of laser cutting and create more movement within my design
: No, this was totally an experimental piece which I developed as it was being worked on, so a little trial and error was evolved.
: This particular design can be used in many ways and forms, for both commercial and residential customers. Ideal for landscaping, walls, backlighting, architectural features etc.
: I think the energy of the movement within the designs is uplifting and having native birds within the design is a nice positive aspect to the composition, I believe this is what sets it apart from other decorative laser cut panels.
: Birds of Steel is a metaphor for the constant struggle native bird life has against the elements and mankind (superhero came to mind). Ironically one of the materials used in construction of these panels is steel so it was a nice cohesive title.
: The initial concepts were sketched in pencil and then reworked in illustrator and refined.
: The most unique aspect I believe is that each part of the design have to physically link or join with another part to ensure the entire design held together when laser cut.
: The illustrated design was created by me in Illustrator and then saved in a vector CAD formatted files for the client to be cut out using their large laser cutter.
: Laser cutting technology is becoming much more precise, faster and able to be used on much larger scale projects. This allows for much more complex designs and fabrication which can be precisely manufactured to the requirement of the project.
: Yes. I studied bird videos of flight movement and referenced native plant and bird imagery and scenery to help me depict the movement I needed in the design.
: The most difficult part of this design was to work out ways to make the elements all link up physically so they wouldn’t full apart.
: At first I was a little sceptical at the notion of nominating my piece for an award over in Italy. In New Zealand the world seems so big and I didn’t have much knowledge of this particular competition until it was brought to my attention. I did a little research and read a few reviews and decided what have I got to lose… and here we are now. The hardest part for me was the fee as Euros end up quite expensive over here in New Zealand.
: With many designs I work on, this was a learning process as it was an idea in my head which I was keen to try and develop. I can happily say that it was success and it has given me faith to try more ideas.
