Absolutely stunning sunglasses created using Stratasys’ cutting-edge 3D printing technology are sadly not for sale

Constraints form a major part of a designer’s process. Whether it’s constraints based on materials, manufacturing capabilities, technology, or even just budget constraints, designers work well within those boundaries to create the best solutions possible… but what if there were absolutely no constraints? What if everything was left open to possibility? That’s what designer and educator John Mauriello shows with this video, where the sky is practically the limit. Relying on $200,000 printers from Stratasys, and technology that’s so cutting edge that consumers can barely afford it, Mauriello created the wildest set of sunglasses we’ve ever seen. Ergonomics, aesthetics, and design guidelines be damned, Mauriello’s sunglasses are absolute statement pieces, showcasing the themes of earth, wind, fire, and water. Moreover, they explore a set of circumstances that most designers don’t get to explore – a highly elusive ‘what-if’ scenario where money, material, and manufacturing are all open-ended.

Designer: John Mauriello
Prototyper: Stratasys

Before we begin, none of these glasses are designed for the mass market. In fact, they’re experiments that aren’t for sale… but instead, form a core part of Mauriello’s design exploration and education approach. You can follow John’s YouTube page “Design Theory” to learn more… and if you want to design and print your own frames without shelling out $20,000 for a fancy top-of-the-line printer, scroll to the bottom of the article to learn more about Xometry – a website that 3D prints your designs and delivers them to your doorstep.

A lot of a person’s emotions get expressed through their eyes, and sunglasses hide that. It’s why people wearing sunglasses look mysterious to the extent of appearing ‘cool’. That became the starting point for Mauriello’s ideation. “That’s actually why I came up with the four elements idea,” he said. “I liked the idea of a natural disaster happening around your face, but you still look cool and calm and collected to the outside world. Plus I really liked Captain Planet as a kid…”

To design these outlandish sunglasses, Mauriello resorted to an unconventional design direction that he just wouldn’t get to explore with a paying client. It involved a lot of sketching directly in VR using Gravity Sketch, before taking the templates into Houdini to actually simulate effects like fire, wind, water, and earth. For Fire, Mauriello experimented with flames, embers, and sparks before settling on a combination of red flames encased within clear flames. It honestly looks like a fire inside the clear spectacles is causing them to melt.

The Earth sunglasses are pretty self-explanatory, and come with a cracked surface that looks like chiseled rock formations. Unlike the Fire sunglasses that have an almost sinister aesthetic (the kind you’d see on a supervillain), the Earth glasses have a stable, grounded, rectangular form factor that’s made a tad bit more interesting by the cracks in its surface.

The Water sunglasses have a bubble-like aesthetic to them, with liberal rounded edges and forms; and instead of relying only on simulations, they use a bit of AI-generated art too. The splashes inside the clear frames were made in Houdini itself, but the colors and textures on the splashes were generated using OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Rather than taking stock images, Mauriello sought to create his own, giving the glasses an added layer of uniqueness.

The Wind sunglasses too use AI-generated textures in the colored elements of the frames. The colored elements, designed to look like wisps of smoke, are trapped in a clear frame that has an aerodynamic shape, with ribs running along the front that looks like a wind-tunnel test come to life. Look inside and you see these incredible wispy forms inside, looking like the glass marbles we played with as kids. Creating this without 3D printing seems downright impossible.

Mauriello was approached by Stratasys, who let him use their J55 printers to build out designs. The J55 is the company’s high-end full-color multi-material printer that prints in ‘voxels’ instead of sliced layers. This allows the printers to meticulously build designs with multiple materials, finishes, textures, and colors all in one stretch – a feature that was integral to Mauriello’s project.

The J55 also allowed Mauriello to build out multiple samples in one stretch, giving him the ability to test out colors, finishes, and other details. Mauriello printed multiple variations of each element, looking at colors, transparency, and overall finish to help him tweak his own models. “You can experiment with a huge range of ideas and one of them is likely to be what you want,” he explained.

Once the samples were ready, Mauriello had them fitted with lenses to complete each sunglass. The glasses don’t have hinges on them, and are unibody (so they can’t be folded), but they are absolutely wearable, and Mauriello even got feedback from a pro eyewear designer on the forms and the overall design language of each elemental sunglass.

The entire project was a collaborative effort between Mauriello and Stratasys, who were kind enough to loan their state-of-the-art multi-material printers to him to showcase their overall capabilities. If you want to make designs just like these, Stratasys does offer a ‘Manufacturing On-Demand’ option that lets you generate an instant quote based on your parts. Alternatively, companies like Xometry have a global network of over 10,000 CNC manufacturers, 3D printers, molders, and other equipment that you can access, for everything from 3D printing to CNC machining and even mold-making. Envisioned to be just as easy as ordering a product online, Xometry lets you upload your model onto their Instant Quoting Engine and have the part delivered to your doorstep in a matter of days. Click here to know more!

The post Absolutely stunning sunglasses created using Stratasys’ cutting-edge 3D printing technology are sadly not for sale first appeared on Yanko Design.

An AI was told to design the Apple Car. This is what it made…

The results may look fascinating, but what’s cooler is that this comes from OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, founded by Elon Musk. So in a way, credit for this Apple Car goes to Tesla’s Elon Musk?! Mmm??

Meet the Apple Car, from the mind of an AI. Designed by Dall-E 2 based on a text prompt from designer, educator, and YouTuber John Mauriello, this Apple Car is fascinating for a bunch of reasons. Mauriello told the AI to design a “Minimalist Sportscar inspired by a MacBook and a Magic Mouse, built out of aluminum and glass”, while also specifying it to design something in the style of Apple’s former design head, Jony Ive. The AI churned up multiple images, using those text-based cues as a reference point. It correctly understood terms like ‘sportscar’, ‘MacBook’, ‘Magic Mouse’, ‘Aluminum’, and ‘Jony Ive’. Funnily enough, Mauriello didn’t mention the word ‘Apple’ anywhere in his prompt, but the AI got the hint. Eventually, it grasped those terms, and designed something that made sense, rather than mashing stuff together (which is what other AI diffusion engines tend to do). The car looks quite stunning, to be honest, and has a sleek, curvilinear quality to it, with a machined aluminum body and zero breaks in the surface. It’s as if Jony Ive and Aston Martin teamed up to bring this car to life!

How the AI engine works is it creates variations based on the same prompt. This results in images that are connected, but aren’t essentially the same, making the AI a great exploratory and ideation tool. There are some parts where the AI has obviously goofed up, like the fact that the car on top has front wheels that aren’t touching the ground, or a few images later, where the car doesn’t have a windshield or even windows. Practically these may be drawbacks, but conceptually, the AI absolutely nailed the brief. If you look carefully in the image above, the AI even put an easter egg into the picture in the form of a warped Apple Watch wallpaper (or is it a HomePod animation?) on the rear of the car!

This so-called Apple Car, despite its flaws, looks absolutely stunning. Unlike other Apple Car concepts that are either too outrageous or too boring and ‘car-like’, this AI-generated sportscar is sheer perfection. It helps that the AI also used wonderful dramatic chiaroscuro-style lighting to bring out the car’s surfaces! I’m not an Apple guy and I’d buy that.

This isn’t John Mauriello’s first rodeo with AI-generated designs. He’s also made an incredibly comprehensive YouTube video about Artificial Intelligence in the context of design and human creativity that’s a must-watch in my book. DALL-E 2 is currently open only to a restricted group of people, although you can sign up to join their waitlist. If anyone from OpenAI is reading this, help me out? I’ve been waiting for my invite since April!

Image Credits: John Mauriello and Dall-E 2

The post An AI was told to design the Apple Car. This is what it made… first appeared on Yanko Design.

These 3D-Printed lamps were designed using algorithms that copy coral growth patterns

John Mauriello, the designer behind the Coral Lighting Collection, has a very beautiful way of describing his creation. You’re not looking at a lamp, or a coral… you’re looking at a moment frozen in time. These lamps are the work of complex algorithms simulating natural growth, but they’re also just as equally the moment that John decided to press pause on the simulation.

Say hello to Timor, Sargasso, and Celebes, three members of John’s Coral Lighting Collection. Inspired by different styles of corals, the lamps come with varying aesthetics that reflect the visual characteristics of each coral-type. The way John went about creating these unique lights was to first develop the computational design algorithms that mimic growth patterns found in nature. “The lighting collection is my way of paying tribute to the beauty of the ocean. As a veteran surfer, I’ve experienced the power and beauty of the ocean while enjoying each wave as its own unique moment in time. One of many magical living structures in our great oceans is coral. With a diverse range of color, shape, and scale, coral is an entire ecosystem of thriving life. My lighting celebrates this life”, says Mauriello.

Designed to look just as pretty even when switched off, the lamps are part installation, part lighting design. As pretty as any ornate vase, each lamp comes with a stable design that allows it to stand on its base without tipping over. Printed in a white cloudy material (almost resembling ceramic), the lamps come with LED lights built-in, which shine through the lamp’s uneven cross-section to create brighter and duller regions based on the form. It’s captivating to look at when switched off… but switch it on and it looks hauntingly beautiful! In an effort to reduce waste and curb carbon emissions, all lamps are 3D printed in the USA, using processes that allow for recycling of any waste material in the manufacturing process. The lamps will be up for presale soon, you can head down to John Mauriello’s website to leave your email and get notified when the collection goes on sale.

Designer: John Mauriello