RL: Please tell us about yourself?
SO: I am the founder of RazorLAB and MakersCAFE. I am originally a product designer (Central St Martins, UAL, MA Industrial Design) and a mechanical engineer.
RL: Please tell us about your design?
SO: CMYKshade is a flat-pack, self-assembly lampshade, that is laser cut out of 3mm acrylic. It comes in four colors (hence the name CMYK): Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, which you can also mix&match into two-color combinations.
The design motivation behind it is that I wanted to waste least amount of material and cause least amount of carbon print during transportation. The self-assembly part also adds a bit of fun, getting the end user involved in the final put-together process.
It was pucrchased by Nesta to be part of their HQ’s interior design.
Wrap It Up, Global Wrap Artists, made it part of their nationwide interior branding, locating them at their 12 stores across the UK.
MoMA Store in NewYork, had a popup ‘Designs From the Streets of Istanbul’, where CMYKshade was part of.
RL: What do you like about laser cutting and the material/s you used?
SO: There is something uniquely special about laser cutting and use of 2D sheet materials to come up with 3D products. The limitations challenge the designer to be clever about how to add the 2D that 3rd dimension, to make final product truly 3D. Designers respond to this challenge in many ways by using interlocking parts, gluing layers, utilising extra joining parts such as screws, nuts&bolts and various 3D printed elements.
The way I looked at it was, I wanted to avoid extra elements as much as possible, except I went down the route of making a research in what is out there that I can use to sit laser cut acrylic sheets on to layer them up horizontally and somehow construct a conical shape. Blind curtain strings, which you can buy off the shelf, came as the strongest among other candidates.
RL: Where can we see your work?
You can visit my product design studio SOPDS’ website.