Iron 3D Printed Forms and Products Design · 2023
Last Stand Office Gadget
by Juan Ospina
- A' Design Award 2023 Iron Winner in 3D Printed Forms and Products Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Ospina Umbreit Design
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 37,886
- Verification code F3FBDA880A · Verify this award
About Last Stand Office Gadget
Last Stand is a pencil extender designed to keep short pencils in use. The body is 3D printed in resin and measures 15 millimetres in diameter and 150 millimetres in height. A moving centre piece, machined from aluminium alloy on a five axis machine, allows the pencil to be repositioned after each sharpening. A cap holds the pencil in place, and the back point can be used for craft work. The body is printed in two parts, the metal piece is inserted, and both parts are joined with the same resin. The aim is to reduce pencil waste.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This design is made on 3 phases to be achieved; a cnc dynamic center piece to help re position the pencil every time a sharpener is used to re locate the usable part, same time as playing while being creative which helps most of creative designers to think. this piece is trapped inside so in the one piece body needs to be printed in 2 parts, then the cnc body is inserted and the 2 parts are fused with hand applied resin. the aesthetics influenced by the how was it made rule consumer brains
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 15mm overall diameter, 150mm height
- Tags
- resin, pencil, popular, preppy, dynamic, elegant
- Production Technology
- T metal moving center piece is made out of 5 axis cnc machined aluminum alloy, the best part is due to being so small the cost is really worth it. the rest is resin 3d printed on either dlp or sla printer and the final stage is fusing both body parts with the same resin used for printing. The product soul is the most common artifact on existance for designers; a pencil reaching it's last usefull days. It's a perfect match, low cost, short term production, premium aesthetics and most important, reachable to all, almost everyone has a dying pencil
- Design Challenge
- The hardest part was to find a cheap way to achieve a locked in centerpiece on a resin 3d printed body, its imposible to hold it in place while being printed and due to the centerpiece aesthetics is imposible to insert it in the finished/closed body piece. It couldn't be done by plastic inyection either because of the same problem and body locking to the mold issues. Last and key these kind of gadgets need to be really well balanced between production cost and possible paynment cost. It's totally useless if no one wants to buy it so achieving that perfect cost was the heart to the whole project
- Project Duration
- This project started on February 2023 in Cali, Colombia and is currently posted on Ospinaumbreitdesign instagram platform, with pre sell focus
- Operation Flow
- The dying pencil goes into the body, the cap keeps the pencil in place, the center metal piece helps re positioning the pencil everytime it gets sharpened and controling stress, the back point works for crafts
- Research
- Design research for new product development. The main objective was giving value to something that already lost it and selling it as better than new instead of reused garbage as most people would see it, same as boosting the aesthetics to achieving the perfect balance between new components but not taking the pencils value away, it had to stay as the core of the project. The methodology used was taking the object to diferent scenarios and letting random people a pencil if they needed to write something down, none of them needed it but all where stuned when they saw the little dying pencil as a loyal all life friend. Smiling people everywhere asking how to acquire one even tho no one really wanted to write, however all wanted to stand with that last stand loyal piece of pencil 223 out of 223 people where desperate to buy it not for being fancy but to give their old pencils one last breath before being the trully term useless. Now we can resignify useless.
- Inspiration
- I'm a creative concept designer so I sketch all the time, I make a minimum of 5 ideas per day, I love the conceptual start conceived with hand analog sketching, therefore I use a lot of pencils. However, I always get these little pieces or pencils leftovers, I love the pencils I work with so I wanted to make something for them to be used until the very last posible instead of having to trow them away because of not having a good grip. Of course always keeping elegant premium design and dynamism
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Juan David Ospina (designer, modeler and renderer), Last stand, 2023
Colors of Last Stand Office Gadget
Design Interview about Last Stand Office Gadget
I do a lot of sketching daily, for both my creative processes and working. One day as I was working I ran out of ergonomics and couldn't continue to use my pencil, which had like 8cm left still. That got me thinking that we use 2/3 approximately of pencils in full comfort regarding ergonomics. So I thought, why dont we give pencils one last stand, to use at least 90-95% of them and not 60%. Of course I added aesthetics, and more but the main focus was to to a secondary product revolving the main one which already exists but is not valued as much; the pencil.
My main focus was to benefit both designers with more pencil usage and pencils with a symbolic honor/value retribution from us; like a "hey I appreciate you for helping me work, design, etc. I aint gonna let you die this fast, I got you"
I'm currently working on prototyping some to check markets before I go into the final production to sell in design houses
Two days the most
I pursuit an inspiration. Made it a part of my daily practice/concepts. and then evolved into a loyalty meaning between human-pencil, a story worth of telling.
I intend to sell this design, either making it myself and selling the final products or selling the lease and gaining a % per production yearly/monthly
I was doing my hourly creative practice, came up with the idea, liked it and then one of my peers told me "hey this looks like one of those design magazines/profiles/press posts, why don't you go for it with this one, then I was like: "yeah why not, I'll check my to do's design competition list, choose one and win it". Next thing I know is I won
Mostly designer/arquitects/artists with a preppy sense for products. It's not a so expensive product but do to the technology required to make it's not the cheapest either so...
This design elevates the value of pencils, not itself alone. People all have families, friends, someone to look for when going htrough hard moments. We can all relate to this meaning behind this product's interaction
The product represents humans' loyalty translated into a secodary product to help the first product's lifespam. Last stand it self is nothing without the pencil, it's a secondary player meant to be so. It's help translated into partnership
I used Solidworks to 3d model, Solidworks visualize to render, and a fdm 3d printer to check human proportions and factibility (I won't give credit to the 3d printers brand unless they wanna sponsor me)
There are 3 actually. 1) As I said above, this product is intended since conception to be a secondary product with no value by itself 2) It's kind of tricky to put a metal centerpiece in a closed resin 3d printed/plastic inyected loop 3)The metal and plastic mix creates an explicit statement, the core of this product is not the product itself but the interaction on loyalty
It's huge, to put a floating metal piece inside a closed plastic main body needs a lot of knowledge in materials behaviour and manufacture processes
I did research on pencils lifespam to see if it was justifiable to make this project or leave it as a digital concept
Other than technical none.
I was confident of winning based on the preliminary score. I knew I had a huge chance to win
I assured the importance of well done conceptualizing more than designing something purely aesthetically appearing without meaning