designer. artist. builder. dreamer.
This is a project that I am currently in the process of designing. I was asked to design a custom display that would showcase a pin and keychain collection. The client currently has an Arc Display, shown in this gallery, and wanted the pin/keychain display to compliment the Arc Display. The shadowbox display that currently houses the collection was purchased from a craft store. Check out the gallery below for the original shadowbox, concept drawings, and renderings for this project.
At the time of this project, Dremel Power Tools, a division of Bosch Power Tools, was achieving great success with the launch of their newest tool, the Multi-Max. This tool performed such operations as cutting, sanding, and scraping by using oscillation, a very fast vibration. It didn’t have spinning or reciprocating movements, so it was impressive to most people. This type of tool was currently on the market and produced by another manufacturer, but its starting price of $300 made it an unreasonable purchase to the average consumer. So Dremel came out with this tool for $99. However, the price tag alone was not going to sell the tool. This was the kind of tool that needed to get into the hands of the consumer, in order for it to sell. I was asked to develop several designs of in-store demonstration merchandisers to be used at The Home Depot. The merchandisers would not only serve as a demo station, but they would also stock the tools and accessories. These merchandisers were going to be used as examples for the sales staff to build right there in the store, so the materials included needed to be available in the store.
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always had a fascination for cars, particularly the high-end italian type! I’m an avid Formula One racing fan and die cast car collector. I started collecting in college and it wasn’t long before I had amassed quite the collection for myself. I was running out of room to display them and I came up with the idea to build a special display case to showcase the cars. It wasn’t long before other collectors, enthusiasts, and owners started contacting me about creating displays for their collections. However, it didn’t stop there. Soon I was being asked to create replica items and single cars displays, and other miscellaneous items. Building these custom items is nice change of pace for me after spending most of my time in front of the computer. Enjoy!
I have always enjoyed working with lights, especially LED lighting. Working with LED lighting allows me to take some projects to the next level by incorporating the compact power of an LED light. This is a small sample of LED displays that I have created in the past.
I was feeling a bit festive the other day and came up with this idea, being that it’s soooo close to Christmas. We had some relatives coming for Thanksgiving dinner, so I thought I would make something that might catch their eye as they walked in the door. Afterall, everything is better when illuminated with LEDs, right? I don’t have many pics of the progress on this project because it was done in such a hurry. The frame is 1/2″ MDF trimmed with standard window trim. The reindeer and town silhouette are cut with CNC from 1/4″ luan plywood. They are mounted on 3/4″ dowels using hot glue. The background is 1/2″ plywood laminated with styrene. The 5 LEDs (4 blue, 1 red) are powered by a single 9 volt battery. The entire shadowbox measures 31″long by 11″ high by 4″ deep. Take a look at the gallery below!
I recently had the pleasure of working with my dad on a project for the Naperville Bank & Trust in Naperville. The bank purchased the historic 1939 Post Office building to be used as their new downtown location. We were asked to work on a couple projects for them that would incorporate original items found in the post office during its time of operation.
The first project was to dismantle a series of old, brass post office box doors and create a wall display that would be placed inside the wall of the presidents office, while still visible to the rest of the bank. Removing the doors seemed like a simple task at first, but ended up being rather complex because of how they were originally manufactured. Since the post office box keys were nowhere to be found, we had to remove the doors Continue reading “Naperville Bank And Trust Kiosks and Wall Display” →
At the time of this project, my Ferrari-collector client couldn’t find any scale replicas of a Formula One Ferrari nose and was looking for one to display on the wall in his office. Yes, you read that correctly. I was going to build the front-end nose assembly from a car that produces the most beautiful sound in the world; the Formula One V10. I decided to model it after the 2003 Ferrari driven by then driver Michael Schumacher. It was decided that the nose would hang on the wall and be built at 1/2 the original size. My references were several 1/18″ scale HotWheels die cast cars and lots of photos taken from books, internet, and the actual race car. The entire project took almost 3 months to go from concept to finished product. At this point in my life, I wasn’t too familiar with the art of fiberglassing. I had been reading about it and thought that this project would be the perfect opportunity to try this new technique. I contemplated several ways in which to construct the nose because it would ultimately have to be built in several pieces. It also needed to be assembled and disassembled without any problems. A couple years have gone by since I made this and i can assure you…..I would definitely consider doing things differently should I need to make another one! In the end, it was a very valuable learning process for me. I learned many things about fiberglassing….especially what NOT to do.
I was recently commissioned to come up with a gift idea for the owners of a Chicago-based company to be completed in time for the holiday season. After some discussion, it was decided that I would create a business card holder for each of the three owners of the company. As usual, I submitted a computer rendering for approval before I started. The business card holder would incorporate the company logo as well as the name of the person. Since I knew that their office furniture was a dark mahogany, I took a chance and picked a hard maple to contrast the dark furniture. The main part of the company logo is red, so rather than painting or staining for additional contrast, I used Padauk. It’s an exotic wood that comes from Africa. When Padauk is clear-coated it almost glows! It’s awesome stuff to work with and smells pretty good when it’s cut. The entire project involves a special laminating process that combines the two species of wood. Each business card holder measures 8″L by 1-1/2″D by 3-1/2″H and are finished with 3 coats of clear gloss finish.
One day over the summer I got a call from one of my local Ferrari enthusiasts. Her current everyday vehicle was a 1999 Ferrari F355 Spider and she had several miniature die cast collectibles and books that she was looking to display. She had purchased a bookshelf from some high-end furniture store and wanted to modify it by adding a back-lit logo display on the top. I asked her if she could send me a picture of it….she said she could do better and brought it over within 30 minutes of our conversation. After seeing some of my work, she told me to “just make it look cool.” The bookshelf featured a black, “weathered” oak wood-grain texture and she wanted to maintain this same appearance in the logo display so that it didn’t look like an “add-on.” So the challenge for me was to duplicate the same style onto the logo display. No problem….
Sometimes, no matter what I do from day to day, it always seems like I end up doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve been feeling the urge lately to carve something. I’ve been playing around lately with mold-making and weighing the pros and cons on the expensive materials needed to experiment. Mold-making is easy. It’s simple. But it can be expensive. It can be even more expensive if you don’t do the research needed for your specific project. Continue reading “Prancing Horse Sculpture: Part 1” →
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