About
A university project completed in 2024 where the brief was to design and create 10 identical giftware items to sell via the pdecollection.com shop.
Idea
Approaching this project I wanted to slip cast my product. This stemmed into working with clay. Wanting to keep the idea playful, fun and light-hearted, I was entirely hands on prototype with little to no sketching. The idea was sparked from draping airdry clay over things and evolved into draping over fruit.
Challenges
Clay presented with a lot of challenges from it breaking before firing to cracks after firing to replicating the final result for the rest of the products. For each challenge several routes were explored and evaluated to solve them before moving on.
Result
The end result was 11 fruit bowl each slightly unique made through press moulding clay and all being glazed white.
The fruit imprints in the bowl are crisp and identical while the edges all vary. Each bowl is well balanced and sits nicely on a table
Working with Ceramics
Ceramics are unpredictable, especially in the kiln. This required a lot of trust in the technicians working the kiln and a lot of patience in waiting for the clay to dry out for firing. Glaze testing was conducted early to prevent rushing at later stages. Overall this project required a lot of time management, planning and patience.
Photography
I found the photography difficult to set up with most of the ideas and compositions falling flat. Without realising that it had gotten dark, a picture was taken without the intent to use flash. This flash picture greatly highlighted the curves and shapes of the bowls while adding a layer of intrigue which I thought perfectly suited the product. From there, the rest were taken using the same settings and then edited to really highlight the bowl.
Eden
Eden is a stoneware fruit bowl designed around fruit. Originally designed by being moulded over fruit, each of the beautiful handmade bowls have been made using techniques such as hand shaping and press moulding. Each bowl is slightly different and sizes may vary.
The name is inspired by the idea of plentiful and bountiful which lead to the idea of the garden of Eden.
RGE Design 