Personal Work

NO DESIGN BRIEF

All my life I have been designing and changing the world around me. I have worked on a lot of projects for myself, or at the request of others but am, admittedly, horrible at documenting the process. Below are some that I remembered to pull out the camera for.

BARN QUILT

If you drive around the rural areas of the midwest you may begin to notice old barns adorned with large, painted "quilts" hung on them. My parents live in Kentucky, and asked me to make make a barn quilt for them; I was given free range to make whatever I wanted. So, rather than make a repeated pattern like you would normally see on a quilt I made a more contemporary interpretation to match the modern detailing on their house. Using a classic quilt layout, I fragmented the pattern and made each individual area a unique color. Each color was hand mixed and painted with a brush to give a subtle texture up close.

travel cribbage

A compact cribbage board to keep in a bag or the car. I couldn't find one I liked, so I made my own. I decided there were a few must haves:

Full-size board (121 holes for scoring)
Full-size deck of cards
Minimal fuss to set up and put away

I had the boards laser cut to get precision in a small space. A fabric hinge makes it easy to pack up; pegs are stored in a tube that sits at the top of the deck of cards. I have put a lot of mileage on this board already, but I consider this a prototype. I have a couple improvements I would want to make in a second version including tweaks to the hole layout and a better holder for the pegs.

FRENCH CLEAT COAT RACK

A custom-made coat rack for the small entryway to my house. The french cleat is a time-tested design that is secure and adjustable. I used baltic birch plywood because the material is very stable, reasonably priced, and the glue joint across the front block and mitered cleat becomes nearly invisible because the plys are thin. The simple square hooks match the clean, crisp lines of the rack. The entire rack is spaced slightly off the wall so that the hook blocks do not rub the wall paint when they are slid along the cleat.

MILWAUKEE TOOL ROCK CLIMBING GROUP STICKERS

I am an avid rock climber. I somehow became the manager of an email group of 20-30 Milwaukee employees who rock climb. I send out climbing-related news to the group, organize outdoor trips, teach anchor building and also organize a meet-and-greet event for all the new employees to get to know some of the climbing folks.

I also really like stickers. So, I set out to design stickers for the climbing group for people to show off their affiliation on their cooler, water bottle, bicycle or their whip. I just had some fun with the Milwaukee logo and mixed it with rock climbing.