Project Duration: 14 weeks, Group
Collaborators: Amber Li Tools: Solidworks, Production,
Station Design is a culmination three industrial designers and one graphic designer. As our senior capstone project, we collaborated to form a design group and produced a line of products in multiple, branded and sold them.
We each had a headline product, and 1-2 smaller ones that we were in charge of. My headliner was the Moiré Clock, using the eponymous illusion to reveal the current time as the numbers rotate through the filter. I collaborated with Amber Li↗, who made a custom set of numerals for the face, while I led the physical design and manufacturing.
Check out the other products at stationdesign.co!
❷ How it Works
As time passes, the numbers animate through 3 different sizes, almost dancing across the dial.
It’s somewhat dissorienting to read at first, due to the rotating dial the numbers are in counter clockwise order. When the number is centered in the filter, the minute hand is at the half hour, so as the hour passes, the new time creeps into the filter and pushes the current one out.
❸ Materials Sourcing
Because of our small batch production model, we were able to make our products out of finite reclaimed materials. What wasn’t reclaimed, was carefully selected to ensure it is responsibly American made, and of the utmost quality.
For the clock, the metal was sourced from offcuts at the Metals Supermarket in Cranberry, PA. The paper was milled by the French Paper Company in Niles, MI. Finally, the quartze clock movements are from Takane, the sole manufacturer of American made movements.
❹ Assembly
With the goal being ease of assembly and affordability, the Moiré Clock only uses 13 components, excluding the battery.
The Main body, the dial and the filter were completely made by us from raw materials.
❺ Ideation
The early descision making process was mostly about how to showcase the moiré effect, whether the filter moved or the dial, wall hanging or floor standing, etc.
We decided to go with the sheet metal body because of its simplicity, trying to preserve the purity of the illusion.
❻ Prototyping
We wanted there to be a kinetic effect as the clock moved, as opposed to just a static image of the number. This process was in tandem with the ideation phase, as it was key to deciding the form.
The saddest thing to let go of on this project was painting the edge of the dial black, (shown on bottom right) which proved near impossible to get consistent at a justifiable speed.
❼
Production
Producing these quickly became a problem of cutting circles of different sizes, accurately. The metal was able to be automated easily with a milling machine and jig, but cutting the paper concentricly proved quite difficult.
We experimented with several jigs with knives and the laser engraver, but ended up finding someone in Pittsburgh who would make us a custom Die (bottom right).
Metal Clock /3
As long as we worked on this project we wanted to make an all metal version of the clock. Without a way to produce 8” metal circles affordably, we decided to use paper to keep our intended pricepoint.
After to project was over, we decided to do a run of all metal clocks. The body is stainless steel for strength, and the dial/hands are aluminum to not exceed the max weight of the movement.
❽ Production pt. 2
We orded the dials from Send Cut Send, and screenprinted the numerals ourself using Plastisol ink on our porch.
Otherwise, the production was quite similar to the others. If we were to do a full line of clocks in the future I think this would be an exciting route. Especially if we find a way to bend thicker metal, an all aluminum version would be ideal for sustainabilty and cohesion.
❾ Family Photos
Together we made and sold over 100 products. It was truly a collaborative effort to unify ourselves and our work under one mission. I’m really lucky to have been able to work with such talented designers.