SLIGHT
With Slight, my focus was to use slate in a different way to the norm. This involved a lot of material testing to truly understand the properties of slate and how it would react to being cut and shaped in different ways. Knowing how the material would react was vital to my design process as then I knew what was possible. Slate is a unique material because of its laminate structure it is very strong in one direction. This meant any cutting of the slate against the direction of the laminate had the risk of cracking the slate, especially when cutting thin sheets. By using a water jet cutter I could cut accurate shapes. These two pages show some of my development work, material testing, and final prototyping.
Slight was one of my final year university projects, where I explored using materials for different uses to there normal intended use. Slight is a floor standing lamp made from Welsh Slate and copper, designed to showcase the natural beauty of the slate along with the complimenting copper. The aim of this product is to show that slate isn’t only an industrial material and that it can be used for more elegant, uniquely designed products. As slate is a vastly underutilized material, especially in homeware products.
