Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Update since 2010

It has been a while since I've posted here. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback and I've set in motion an account that will help put up some of the best pics from this blog for sale. I hope to return to shooting photo's just for the sake of it, but I need to exhaust other passions first. I've recently designed and started selling a hybrid animal called Hammerander (Hammerhead Shark + Salamander). Got to use my Nikon for this and it was fun!!
It has been a weird two years (time since my last post). I've had a beautiful daughter, watched my son grow into an age where I still have childhood memories, and now I've been able to spend more time with my wife at music shows. It is a new normal as I've been told and I'm still learning to embrace and appreciate it.

During that time I also got involved with quirky.com, which is a community driven product development company. They've released all sorts of products like flexible outlets, A Shower Station, ice scrapers, funky praying mantis shaped lights, crazy hangers, gadget docking trays,Bandits, wine corkers, food graters, wine glass accessories, and much more. They've moved into Target and will be selling from there in all Target stores by the end of their summer. I was fortunate to win a few rounds (and earn extra royalties), which made me really think about how I could use the money and where I wanted to apply my energy. I had been using Google Sketchup and Maxwell Render to make product submissions for quirky.com + edisonnation.com and ended up doing around 25 concept renders the latter half of 2011 into this month. On the side, I entered a makerbot contest to design a monster inside a small build space 100mm x 100mm x 120mm and I was up for the challenge. Entering this space was a lot more challenging than a concept render. Actually designing something to be made on a 3d printer meant the design had to be perfect. No holes, and geometry facing the right way. Here are some submissions I entered:


This process of staring at a blank computer screen and trying to come up with monsters helped me realize a couple of things. I have a lot to learn when it comes to making a monster, and I needed to explore one particular design a bit more. Enter Hammerander. I made some friends with some successful members of quirky.com and a subset got together to be an informal advisory board. Bring and idea and leave with solid feedback. I brought the idea of a hybrid animal and they gave it their full support. I even got a name out of one of the members, which is so cool. When you are so close to an idea that needs a lot of work, it is extremely difficult to think of everything that needs to be done. Which is why communities are so important. Especially those who help shove you in the right direction.

I have also been reading Seth Godin's blogs and books (We Are All Weird, and Poke The Box). And I've read Tim Ferriss' 4 hour workweek and 4 hour body books. Both have really taught me tons of new approaches to business and life that I had never heard of. I see this time now as a lab to experiment in the techniques they've suggested. I'll be continuing the Hammerander story at this blog.

3 comments:

  1. LOVE your hammerander design, good show!

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  2. Thanks ryan. I'm taking orders! There are several materials to choose from and 2 sizes for now. You can contact me directly or see the stores for yourself. I'll write a post on the two stores where Hammerander is for sale soon.

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