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Featured Designs

A creative journey by the students of Sint Lucas Antwerp

Back in February we received a visit from some students of the Sint Lucas Art School in Antwerp as part of their creative design week. The students formed part of first and second bachelor year jewelry design courses and got introduced to the possibilities of 3D printing. They were then given an external 3-day workshop by guest-teacher Fabien Franzen to teach and guide them with Moi 3D: an easy to use CAD design package. With their new-found knowledge the students could now start transforming their traditional works of art into 3D designs that would eventually be 3D printed at i.materialise.

Their objective was to evolve their traditional designs from a previous assignment into a 3D printed version of it. The end result was a collection of miniature kitchen and table appliances that was brought forth as a unified collection.

All the above pictures were taken by photographers Bart Vermaercke and Roger Laute.

As for those of you who like to work with poly

Meet the Designer: Josh Azevedo

Meet Josh Azevedo, a man who’s driven by love and decided to use 3D printing to translate his deepest feelings for his wife to be, Heather. We met Josh last year when he came to use with the idea of 3D printing a lovely set of gnomes in multicolor. Ever since that moment, we kept on seeing more of his lovely work come to life through our printers. Today we would like to share Josh’s story with our community and highlight his magnificent 3D printed work that (we can safely say this) comes from deep down in his heart.

Here’s what Josh has to say…

Tell us a bit about yourself? Who is Josh Azevedo?

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. After high school in 1996 I attended Clackamas Community College for some general education courses. On my own, I played with some 3d programs, just cause it looked cool and so I fell in love with 3d modeling. After a short break from the community college, I enrolled in the Art Institute of Portland were I graduated with a Bachelor of Sc

Meet the Designer: Ulrich Schwanitz

Today I’d like to introduce you to our beloved friend and designer Ulrich Schwanitz. A man that continued a vision of his son through 3D printing and managed to bring adorable stainless steel characters to life in the name of love. He also just started an interesting funding campaign on Indiegogo (see video below) where you too can play a part in the realization of 3D printed love.

So for this lovely occasion we thought it would be interesting for our readers to get to know Dr. Ulrich Schwanitz a bit more ans the ideas and thoughts behind his latest project, The Scrappies. Here’s his story…

Tell us a bit about yourself… Who is Ulrich Schwanitz?
I am everything but a typical designer. I grew up as a scientist in the 1970’s and 80’s, and I still remember the times when computers were controlled by punch cards, typewriters and without undo buttons. I have worked in the IT departments of multinational manufacturing companies in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. During that

Meet the Designer: Josh Henry

Not too long ago, we received an order at i.materialise to 3D print some pretty big transparent pieces. Our curiosity kicked in and we decided to contact the designer to find out what these transparent parts were for. To our surprise, Josh revealed to us that it was for his magnificent Ula Miami Concept Car that he was developing at the University of Cincinnati. As soon as knew that, we didn’t hesitate a second and contacted him for an interview.

Here’s what our friend Josh had to say…

Tell us a bit about yourself… Who is Josh Henry?

I am currently a Junior at The University of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.  Car design has been a passion of mine and is what I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Car design for me is really about creating a product with emotion. Creating a life, or a character if you will. Thinking about the interaction between a person and a vehicle and that emotional attachment that one has with the vehicle. These are things that fas

Multicolor as part of a bigger Story

Multicolor is a wonderful material to use for its wide range of colors but many designers also tend to use it for different purposes. Take the work of Canadian designers Digital Statues as example. Their work gets 3D printed in monochrome multicolor which looks a bit like polyamide when it comes out the machines. These sculptures are then hand-painted to accentuate and highlight the facial features. Examples of this can be seen in the images below.

To find out more about the great services that Digital Statues provide you can visit their website at www.digitalstatues.com.

A similar process is applied by Dutch artist Ilse Vermeulen who designed the adorable Mr. Collodi (pictured below) and went as far as dressing him up with custom made clothing. Again here you’ll see that she got her model 3D printed in monochrome multicolor and sprayed it afterwards.

To see more of Ilse Vermeulen’s creative work you can visit her website at www.ilsevermeulen.nl.

So as you can s

An upcoming book and a major solo exhibition by Iris van Herpen around the corner

Iris van Herpen is a Dutch fashion designer that needs little to no introduction on this blog due to her immense popularity. We have covered her wonderful 3D printed work of art several times and her escapism dress has even been named one of the Best 50 Inventions of 2011 by TIME Magazine.

With that said, it comes as no surprise that countless people would love to see her work up close and so the great thing is that now you can! Iris van Herpen will be holding her first major solo exhibition at The Groninger Museum in The Netherlands. It will be running from the 24th of March until the 23th of September of 2012. That’s a full six-month period!

To accompany the exbibition, the first book on Iris van Herpen will be published. This volume contains an overview of all her collections up to the present, as well as am essay by fashion journalist Jean Paul Cauvin and a foreword by the curators.

So if any of you are planning a trip to The Netherlands between these dates, make sure

TIME Magazine names Iris van Herpen’s 3D printed dress one of the 50 Best Inventions of the 2011

THE 3-D-PRINTED DRESS

92 CENTIMETERS | Combining design with technology, Dutch couturier Iris Van Herpen’s fantastical dresses are initially planned in Photoshop. She then works with an architect to develop a 3-D model, which is printed onto a polymer over the course of a week, resulting in a ready-to-wear dress that is an exact replica of the original sketched version. Van Herpen — who recently designed the dress Bjrk wears on the cover of her new album, Biophilia — presented her printed dresses during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week this January.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2099708,00.html#ixzz1odicWIYc   By TIME Magazine

2011 was a lovely year for 3D printing, especially when TIME Magazine decided to add Iris van Herpen‘s escapism dress to their list of 50 best inventions of the year. This lovely work of art was revealed during the haute couture week in Paris Spring Summer 2011 as part of her 3D printed Escapism couture collection. It rapidly

Decorate your bookcase with adorable little monsters

Today I would like to highlight one of my favorite projects at i.materialise: Monja‘s adorable letter eaters. Not only do they look great (printed in multicolor), but they make your book collection look even better. And if that wasn’t enough… you can even add your own custom text (up to 10 characters per creature) to them. There are three versions that you can choose from and for only €99 (plus VAT and transport) and receive a set of two creatures like seen on the pictures below.

Can’t wait to have a nice set of your own? Get started on your own letter eater set right here!

The 3D prints of the M HKA Challenge are now in the museum

When we announced the winners of the M HKA Design Challenge, we also mentioned that they would be exhibited at the M HKA museum in Antwerp from Dec 19th until Dec 29th. So for those of you who won’t be in the region of Antwerp during the holiday period, we’ve decided to share these lovely pictures of the 3D prints.

My House by 11 year old Kristof van Loock

Holes by designer Luigi Vaghi

Facebooked by teacher/designer of de Kunsthumaniora Filip Verreyke

Facebooked by teacher/designer of de Kunsthumaniora Filip Verreyke

My M KHA Legs by Matthew Pauwels

Senne001 by student of de Kunsthumaniora Senne Roekens

Senne001 by student of de Kunsthumaniora Senne Roekens

And for those of you who will be in the region of Antwerp during the holidays, don’t hesitate to visit the M HKA museum to see the works in person. They always look better up close!

Of course if you like participating in design challenges and just missed this one, no worries because we still have th

How to Win the Spotlight in a Museum

In September we organized a unique design challenge with the Antwerp based museum of M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp). You could participate as a youngster or beginner, as an illustrative artist or as a 3D designer. With that said and the information out in the open, our brave challengers got their gloves on and got to it. After long hours of working on their designs, we received the entries from our participants ready for judging time! And so, together with a judging panel of the M HKA museum we came to a unified decision on the winners of this challenge.

With well-deserved congratulations, we present to you their works of art that will be on display at the M HKA from the 19th until the 29th of December.

For the category of Designers

For the category of Youngster & Beginners

For the category of Illustrative Artists

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen and as usual we’d like to thank all of the participants for their lovely entr