Research

When starting out the process, Ian and I both had the idea of selecting a type of technology and showing its evolution between the two eras. We used a miro to collaborate on ideas.

Ideation

We started with examining phones from different eras because we thought it would be a great way to showcase the contrast of the times. Our first thought was to compare a flip phone with a modern-day iPhone, but we ultimately narrowed our focus to contrast a rotary phone with the iPhone. Our next step was to conceptualize how the piece would actually look and move.

This is when Ian and I divided up work. Ian mainly focused on how the piece would move and function, while I worked on the design and feel. We met on Zoom to make sure everything looked good and to make sure it was reasonable to create.

Concept

Investigating relationships between diptychs, we thought it would be most interesting to explore contrast. We developed a concept using a rotary phone on one panel and an iPhone on the other, as the subjects of the mechanisms. The two panels explore the older technology’s dependency on its chord and its “analogue” dated feeling, versus the digital, minimalist, and futuristic iPhone. Our diptych presents these contrasting qualities through distinctly different compositions and aesthetics in the two panels. The rotary panel’s brown and beige palette produces a purposeful old-timey feeling, opposing the iPhone side’s crisp and undecorated white-on-chrome palette. To represent the analogue nature of the rotary phone, an abstracted wire pattern sits behind the phone and provides physical texture to the work. It is unevenly glued down, so some sections come up towards the observer. The minimalist ethos of the iPhone presents itself in the opposing panel through less decoration and fewer paper parts. The chrome backing endows a futurist feeling to the panel, the iPhone leading the digital age. In terms of mechanisms, the inside number dial of the rotary phone is really built to rotate with an understated tab. A sliding paper mechanism sits behind the cut-out screen of the iPhone, built to be tangibly interacted with (swiping with a finger) to move horizontally between screens. Both panels’ mechanisms move in a similar way to how the real objects are interacted with.

Process

I started by making all of the Illustrator files, so we could run it through the laser cutter. Our main issue was getting the numbers to align with the cut-out circles.

We were finally able to align the pieces but realized that numbers fell through, so we redesigned them using stencil fonts.

Our next step was designing the iPhone sleeve. We kept the design simplistic, so all the lines were easy to cut. The one challenge was the pattern, but once we figured out how we wanted it to look the cut went well.