NOT A SET

I have been toying with the idea of going back to working on interiors. Last month I was asked to work on a small shop for one of my friends. These shops are called exhibitions in Kenya. They are partitions of formerly regular sized shops done in glass. They tend to be very small and most are overcrowded and overhanging with merchandise.

THE BRIEF
The Client wanted to start up a shop that sold boxers, vests, shorts, and socks. They wanted a few hanging shelves to stock the vests as well as a display unit for the boxers and socks.

THE DESIGN
As is the case nowadays they wanted a render of the shops design. I was rather iffy about doing this as their budget didn't cover this but did it anyway and It helped me put the construction into perspective. This is what I came up with but due to time constraints I didn't get to make renders but sent them JPEGS of the 3d images.

The Cabinet at the end existed within the space but was repainted, handles added (there were none) and was to be used as extra storage for inventoy.

The partition walls are made of glass and the issue came up that the client did NOT want to see what was happen with his adjoining neighbours as he felt it would detract from his merchandise (in which I was in full agreement). I treated the walls with ORACLE MATT STICKER PAPER, which I use in printing for my film clients on one wall, and on the facing wall used one way film to give the illusion of the shop looking larger through its reflection along this wall.

Here are a few images haven't quite put them all together but these two images show how the final shop looked like.

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I thinkI nailed the breif except for the material I choose for the floor. I bought a roll of FABLON sticky back plastic but forgot that the existing floor was made of ceramic tile so the FABLON didn't adhere well. I had wanted to use regular PVC carpet and glue it on but the client (as do other Kenyans) dislikes PVC carpets a by product of people using and laying it incorrectly. So that will be redone.

Meanwhile if you are in Nairobi and looking for quality Boxers socks and vests stop at reasonable prices by Market Boutique at Jamia next to Crescent Medical Center and check them out.

EXPERIMENTING WITH RENDERING

So a while back I started working on Google Sketch Up. It was easy to use (relatively) and allows me to take things I have sketched out on paper to fruition. This is what I got when trying to see how far I could take it.





So after getting this done I wanted to try make them as real as possible, I first worked with Shaderlight for Sketch Up. Here are the results




Didn't like the feel much so downloaded Kerkythea which is open source and I feel very good and has an amazing Materials Repository, and lights that can be directly accessed from Sketch Up.
Heres what happened with KT





The renders looked a lot more realistic and I loved them. All in all it was a Good Experiment. My lovely Brother just introduced me to Blender so trying my hand out at this will post the results as soon as I have them.

SKIES OF KENYA: Mai Mahiu Road at Sunset

These were taken on the road from Lake Elementatita to Nairobi using the Mai Mahiu Escarpment Road. It looks out onto the Great Rift Valley and is one of the most panoramic views I have ever seen They were taken through car door glass so may not be that clear. What do you think of them?

SKIES OF KENYA

This is one of my latest photos from my Skies of Kenya series. This was taken in Rongai, Kenya at around 5.30pm

TUSKER ALL STARS

I haven't put up any of my work. Was getting over how drained I felt working on last years projects, I didn't want to share them. It is difficult designing when people simply assume that a program does the design for you and that it is a tool. Your creativity makes it work.
So TUSKER ALL STARS. This was a bridge show between 2 seasons of a popular music reality show a la IDOLS. The show had all the past winners and dramatic contestants come back for a Celebrity sing of.

Initially the director wanted me to incorporate set pieces let behind from a talk show. his Biggest reference the one thing he really wanted was these amazing light boxes on Later with Jules Holland that stretched up in amazing angles. I liked them but didn't want to pull a copy and paste scenario (I hate copy and paste) but it inspired me to creating what became the center piece for the set. The hanging half sun. The motif is a very popular African Design and the sun IS a star so I had it made. Or so I thought.

Very quickly it became clear that it was a little too bland and I reduced the 'rays' and on consultation with the Director angled them a little. This is what I got.

I did mention that the first set brief was to utilise certain pieces risers and metal drum like structures. By the time I had included them all in the drawing it was a mash up.

We removed the Drum Pieces as there really was no central theme. Then came the Kicker due to budget we had to change set locations and now work with the risers left over from the original Project Fame Set. So it was tear everything down (3 weeks work) and start again.
The new risers were circular with varying radii and heights. so the first thing they proposed was this...

This didn't work on so many levels and I still had to make 3D renders, then it changed to this (At this point I had resorted to coming up with an Idea getting it shot down and then someone coming up with the very same Idea and getting asked to execute it submission)

So great finally something that pleased the 5 different people with varying ideas about what they wanted. It was coming together. YAY.
Then came another change. The initial idea called for a bar set that was where there would be celebrity commentators watching the show and where pre-concert interviews would be held.(Sharing those drawings after this post)

The Idea was to have a light wall that resembled the exterior of a building to some extent. The other issue was what was going to be behind the sun fixture that was solved easily enough a star curtain which came after a back projection screen as there just wasn't space for the projector.

Originally I wanted to turn the bases of the risers into light boxes but the frames were metal and I wasn't allowed to drill or alter them so left them as dark dark crevices which worked actually.

Then we watched a Gorillas video cannot for the life of me remember which one and I was asked can we make the light wall a little like that with 'Mondrianesque' lightboxes and I thought hey why not and it changed again.

As you can see it was almost worth it but learnt a couple of VERY important lessons about design for live format TV. And bitting off more than you can chew.