SCHOTT ROBAX Design Award
In December 2016 I got an email from a university staff that was pointing out about a design award for a product design to all of the students. In that time I was working as an intern in "Digital Light Factory" in Salzburg and I had neither time nor interest in participating in this design award. The contest was meant for industrial designers and I was just an animation student. Beside that, they announced the contest around October and it was already too late for me to start. But when that last days of December came and I finished my internship, I had nothing to do in my spare time during the Christmas. So I thought I always loved product design and seeing my ideas not only in computer but also in real life. So why should I not give it a shot?! The problem was I started way too late and literally I only had around less than three weeks. The due date was 8th of January. So I brain stormed all of my ideas in a paper and gathered a lot of reference images for the original concepts. Then all the ideas were around 16 and I chose 7 main designs out of them. Now I had only two weeks for the whole process and I spend only two days for each design!
The designs that you see down below was done in a very short period of time and I'm so glad and happy that I took part in that competition. I learned so much from it and if I had some industrial designer friends back then who would have gave me some tips and fine tune my ideas, I would have only chose one concept out all of them and then I would retouch and adjust it the whole two remaining weeks.
Vesta
Vesta is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion.
The shape of most of fireplaces are cubic, cylinder, rectangular or a slightly deformed shape of these. Customers who buy these products, after a while get bored of these designs and are searching for something more creative, robust and elegantly designed.
I chose the form of a flame for the fireplace as it clearly visualize the fire and it has a dynamic form that is very pleasing to the eyes.
Lotus
In this outdoor fireplace design, I was strongly inspired by nature and the beauty of the lotus flower. The goal was to create something that is unique in design language and functionality in its category.
In nature when the first rays of sun hits the lotus flower, the flower petals open and at the end of the day they close automatically. I used this feature of the flower and integrated into the design. When you want to use the fireplace, there is a mechanism inside the device that when you open one petal, since it's all connected to each other through some pipes, all the petals also opens at the same time and when you close it, they all close together. Opening and closing the fireplace is also very easy as you only need to rotate one petal and all the other petals also slowly and elegantly opens. The cover atop is also designed as the real lotus flower and functions as a smoke outlet.
*Real life pictures of lotus flower that I used for the design inspiration
Retro TV
This outdoor fireplace is supposed to gather families when they want to have a family evening together and to tell stories for each other. It is a nostalgic design for people older than 20 years old in a classic, elegant and cozy form. The chimney is also designed to look like an old small village house chimney. In addition, it offers two side holders for wood chunks which are attached to the sides of the fireplace and can be easily removed. Inside the fireplace, a dish can be found which is designed for easily removing the ashes from the fireplace. Also The switch on the side of the TV incorporates a door locking mechanism.
*Real life vintage TVs inspiration
The One Ring - Eye Of Sauron
Now when I look back, I may have went a little bit too far with this design! But the cool thing about being an animator is that, nothing can prevent your imagination to think beyond the boring everyday design that we see in our surroundings. Everything can be used as an inspiration for a product design that can also connect people to the product in a nostalgic way.
J. R. R. Tolkien created an extraordinary world that the tale of the one ring is one of the most important and fascinating one. The One Ring is an artefact that appears as the central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". The one ring was created by Sauron the Dark Lord as part of his design to win dominion over Middle-earth.
By this design I wanted to create a connection between the story and the fireplace.
The stand that holds the ring was created after the Barad-dûr, the tower in which Sauron lived.
In the story there is also the eye of Sauron, which is a gigantic eyeball composed of energy that sits atop Barad-dûr and nothing can hide from it in the middle-earth. In the design I also created a hole in form of an eye in the bottom stand (The left one) that serves as a wood chunk holder.
At the top also stands the main fireplace - the ring - as it symbolizes the burning eye of Sauron when the woods are burning. Inside the ring at the top, there is also some holes elegantly integrated to make the smokes from burning woods go away.
*Early stages of design
*Elements from the movie that got me inspired in the design
Eiffel Tower
When it comes to the most aesthetic, stable, symbolic, and eye-catching design in architecture, the Eiffel Tower comes first in my mind. The goal was to design something iconic, elegant, stable and functional.
Faberge Egg
Farbergé eggs are a symbol of luxury and some actually cost several million euros. I had the desire to design a big and beautiful Fabergé egg, which every household can afford. Karl Fabergé built the first Fabergé egg for the Russian Tsar as an Easter present. Like an Easter present, my design also has the gift inside - the fire that gives joy and warmth to your family. In designing process, I paid attention to give the product a very elegant and luxurious look, but also by minimizing the design elements and sticking to the basic form of farbergé egg, kept the possible future production costs at its lowest. In addition, I added a hatch at the top which functions as a smoke outlet. For the design of the hatch, I wanted to add a crown at the top, but again that would be too much luxurious and in mass production it would be really hard to make it for the final production so I had to limit the ideas to the most basic and essential elements.
The Fire Within
The shell that we live inside, inspired me to go for this design. I thought about the shape of the human body as the main form for the fireplace and the passion for life, family and nice things in the world that we care about and carry around in our heart, can also be symbolized as the burning fire inside the design.
In this design I wanted everything to be very minimalistic and in a reduced form so it's less complicated for mass production and also connecting with the shape would be easier for customers as well.
