This Project: A Design in Crystal

This project is for an innovative new form of sculpture, where etched fragments into a block of crystal reveal two different words or shapes from different views. The words are composed of straight lines in a 3D "cloud" of pieces, where only certain angles show the hidden forms.

It may not look it, but these three photos are of the same object

These images show a crystal that reads "form" from one side and "function" from another, using an old design and made as a test piece. My dream with this Kickstarter, though, is to make a new design that could go to hundreds of people! If you like these sculptures and want to support them, please consider backing my project. If you can't do that but like what you see, send me a message anyway; it's my first time designing for a public audience, and kind words would mean a lot.

Even though the crystals are cut by lasers, they're still designed by a real person (me!), and all of the design is done by hand using pencil and paper.

Design History

I came up with the sculpture idea when I was still in high school, and I've built a few different pieces using this method. The designs are done almost entirely on paper, with a scientific calculator or a spreadsheet for some of the harder math. 

My second sculpture, Work and Play

Before now, these sculptures have always been big - a few cubic feet at least - because it's simply easier to build. They were handmade out of metal, wood, or plastic, and were "tuned" by eye to line everything up.

Angel and Devil

The form/function design shown in the crystal above was commissioned by Northwestern University in 2005 to be designed and built for the Ford Design Center on campus. (A special thanks to Northwestern University and Professor Ed Colgate for their amazing support!)