I really like rough sketches. These are some development and render sketches from Pininfarina.

Another sample from Solidworks World

It was really cool to see the NCC Solidworks 2008 presentation
up on screen in New Orleans.

Solidworks World! I got in yesterday, late at night. Today, there are a bunch of research events for Solidworks. Essentially a way that Solidworks gets free feedback from its users. I will be heading out in a little bit. The first sessions start at 10:00. I will be attending 3 sessions today.
"Photoworks and Animator", "Advanced Surfacing" and "What is frustrating about your job"
Yesterday I met some German engineers on the way to New Orleans. It is really interesting the widely disparate users that use any CAD program. Here I am- all I do is organic modeling- stuff that fits your hand. On the other hand there are users who do just pipes all day. Humungous assemblies made from an enormous number of really simple parts as opposed to simple assemblies with really intricate surfaces.

I will post more as the day progresses.

CCi is hiring heavy hitter industrial designers, especially those knowledgable about Solidworks, and have an interest in wood-working and power-tools. If you are interested, send me a line. If you are attending Solidworks World please feel free to contact me about the position.

I will be going through a rendering presentation at Solidworks World. Since the native files take a little bit longer to load, I will be presenting with dumb solids. However if anyone wants to have a look at the Solidworks files, I have uploaded them here. This is the Solidworks model of the shades above, and not the render studios (I cant give it all away can I?)Tweak as you want to, then send me a copy of your renders. Send me a line if any of you are going to be attending Solidworks World.

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have been pretty busy at work and getting ready for Solidworks World 2007. Some of you have emailed for the Nucleus X sldprt files. I have uploaded them to http://www.mediafire.com/?4mtngxyydum (mediafire is a really cool service BTW).

I have to warn you that the modeling was really quick , and isn't particularly elegant. However it might give you ideas. Please feel free to modify and send me pics of what you do.

Here are the guys I work with at CCi. That is my desk for the most part.
We had to remove all Ridgid, Craftsman and other products from my desk because the photo was for the 2006 Ryobi catalog. I was in China at the time, but I guess I was there in spirit-hey its my desk right?

Little teaser for Solidworks World

Cool- The Nucleus X was featured in this page at carbodydesign.com

So I was Interviewed for Solidworks World .
It was cool.

These are screen grabs from Solidworks and a render from Photoworks. I like to work top-down, so this is all one part file with multiple bodies. The file size ballooned from 4.5 MB on the first day that I posted here with rough surfaces. By the end of the week the file was up to 298 MB (yikes!) 

 

 

Gonna call it a night. felt productive though. 

 

Last minute cranking is never good :) 

 

So we stumbled onto a great Brainstorming Ice Breaker the other day. We called it "5 Worst". So for instance if you are designing a blender you think of the 5 worst things that you can do to design a blender. What does an outrageously bad blender look like?

1) Blender shoots out liquid through the motor when you start it
2) The button is on the inside of the blender jar
3) The blades are made from spaghetti
4) The blender wobbles as you turn it on - and it gets faster as you turn up the power
5) You cant remove the blade or clean it so that fungus grows within 30 minutes of putting the blender in the sink

See- pretty bad ideas, but...

you can already start to get ideas of what a good blender could be. I am looking at no.4 and thinking "Hmmmm....maybe a blender that works more like a paint blender that shakes the liquid?" at no.3 and going "hmm.. does the blade really need to be a blade...can it be something like a hedge string trimmer?"

I accidentally started out a practise session saying "Awright- give me some good ideas on Concept X" and even as I framed the question my mind was drawing a blank on good ideas. As soon as I started asking for outrageously bad ideas, "How would you go out of your way to design a bad product?", then ideas started flowing. The funny thing was that many of the "bad" ideas in retrospect turned out to be imminently workable.

Very fun little exercise

 

I was helping one of the CCi interns out today. I am kinda happy with this sketchover. 

 

Here are some quick sketches for luggage systems.