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Industrial Design 101: Quickly Generating Abstract Form Ideas With Simple Materials

3D sketching with nothing more than an X-Acto knife, paper and a stapler

By Rain Noe - March 3, 2016

in Hand Tools | design.edu | Video

If you're designing a tool, a shop jig or a minimalist housing for an electronic device, you'll pretty much hew to the Form Follows Function rule. But there are plenty of other object categories—say, footwear, automotive or furniture—where you have an opportunity to integrate more abstract trappings.

This can require generating form ideas from beyond the realm of function, and at industrial design school they teach you several techniques for this. Here's one of the quicker, easier and cleaner methods, as demonstrated by industrial designer Eric Strebel. All you need are some sheets of paper or cardstock, a sharp knife, and either a stapler or tape:

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Peter Ragonetti

7 years ago

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One of the assignments for my Foundation 3D class at Pratt is the Self Supporting Plane. Using a 8.5x11" or 11x14" chipboard or museum board, they are allowed 3 scores and 2 cuts (also making a door or window). They can notch and slot. But no tape or staples. The goal is to create dynamic free standing structures using just paper.

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Eric Strebel

7 years ago

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Awesome, Thanks for picking it up. I have lots of other videos about Industrial Design, from sketching to model making and I am always working on others. I record a lot of what I do and tech to my students. Hope you enjoy them all!

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