In this project I’m making a faberge egg projector as a gift for my partner Yi-chen.

Interview Notes (Click)

Proposal (Click)

Purpose

Yi-chen misses her family and school life back in Taiwan. So the purpose of this design is to help remind her of the happy times she spent with family and friends.

Inspirations

First, Yi-chen showed me her favorite painting, Summer at Bougival by Impressionist Alfred Sisley. “When I look at his painting, it’s like I can feel the breeze touching my skin and the warm sun around me,” Yi-chen said. Other than this specific one, in genre, Yi-chen loves Impressionism the most. Those paintings are known for the use of light, and the beauty of unclearness.

 

Second, from our conversations, I found out Yi-chen loves garments made by Dior and Valentino. The works of these two brands are feminine, elegant, soft. They also have that vintage feeling because they have been existed for 50-60 years.

 

Third, Yi-chen said she enjoyed walking around the city and finding some vintage stores. She loves trinkets from those stores.

Summarizing from things mentioned above, I decide to do a Faberge Egg. I saw in an anime that Russian Tsar uses Faberge Egg to store memories. For example, in the egg the creator may carve out a small statue of the imperial family. Faberge Egg is something existed in old time. It’s vintage. And the exquisite design of the egg is also what Yi-chen liked. In order to incorporate the painting into this design, I decided to use trick of lights — DIY projector. So the faberge egg is the body of the projector, and using it I’m going to project Yi-chen’s photo.

 

Process

First thing is to understand the theory behind a DIY projector. I used flashlight on iPhone as light source. The “imagery medium,” here is the photo, I first use a real photo but the light cannot penetrate. So I printed photos on transparency paper. I was surprised that the image can show on the wall through transparencies even there isn’t a magnifier. But using a magnifier makes the image clearer and bigger. I also struggled with magnifiers for some time, because most of the magnifiers are too big to fit in the egg. Then Jessica told me to try the small magnifiers that come with glasses repair kit in pharmacy.

I also tried using mirror chips or multifaceted glass or plastic gems to direct the light (as shown on my sketchbook). Sadly it’s too difficult to implement within a week.

 

Second thing is to find appropriate materials and incorporate the theory into the design. I need an egg, first of all. But it takes longer than I thought to find the right egg. I tried real eggs — I blew out the egg and used Xacto knife to cut on egg shell. But the egg shell cracked. Even if it did not crack, the egg is still to0 small to hold photos and a magnifier inside. Then I went to Michael’s to buy easter egg, but Easter is still far to come so they don’t have eggs in store. Then I tried egg-shaped foam. The size is idea, but it is solid, and it’s hard to paint or do decorations on foam. Since there are no other ways I can go, I started dig the egg, using a spoon. First making a hole, and then dig and dig and dig… Then I used a credit card to make a “mouth” on the egg to put photos inside. I turned on flashlight one side, attach magnifier on the other side, the image showed on the wall. Yay!

 

Third thing is to decorate the egg. At first I thought the technical things with lights would be the most difficult, however it is the decoration part bothers me the most. Since I chose the material I never thought I would use, there are many problems when I’m doing this part. First I wanted to attach paper with ideal patterns onto the egg, but it turned out the paper was too stiff. I can’t make a smooth surface with it. I used adhesive spray to attach it, and the paper was easy to fall off. There was also a dent I made by accident because the adhesive spray corroded the foam.

Then I tried using pearl head pins to anchor the decorative paper. All I can buy are pins with long long needles. It does fix the position of the paper, but needles inside the egg also show on the projected image. Then I used soft, nearly transparent white paper I used on my book cover project. I put tiny little bit of UHU glue to prevent the foam being corroded, and it worked well because the paper is soft and it doesn’t need too much glue. Though the color, the decoration are not what I expected, with no other options left, I went for this one. I used decorative pearls and flowers and attached silver bracelet to make it as beautiful as possible. The good thing is that the texture and softness and light color of the paper are similar to the sky in the artwork my partner chose and similar to Dior’s garments (as mentioned in Inspiration).