With a 3D printer in-house, it proves as much a morning convenience as the city El’ Train station that neighbours the studio, with print jobs completing overnight. “When we’ve used external firms they did a great job, but you lose a day or two when you’re waiting for things to be FedEx’d back to you or are waiting for a spot in line on their machine.” Having the process in-house means multiple prototypes can be produced swiftly, and iterations made and reprinted on demand. So, you’re dealing with fractions of millimetres to get things made up snuggly and properly.” “An iPhone is 6-7mm thick, I forget what they’re down to now, and then we have a case that’s designed to wrap around that tightly. The design team move into 3D CAD tools as early as possible “A lot of the things we do, like the Lunatik stuff, we’re trying to make parts that are very small. “We wanted something high resolution so we could evaluate the surface quality, and shape,” explains Brown. Having moved just over a year ago into its latest offices, the change has allowed them to have a workshop in-house.Īlong with hands on foam modelling MNML has invested in bringing a Stratasys Objet 260v 3D printer into its facility. In a studio where digital modelling is king, prototyping products still remains a key part of this design process. When we do a rendering we know what’s behind it.” Digital to physical “We have enough experience here to know what we’re getting ourselves into. “There’s certainly a value in great 3D visualisation, but if you don’t have the experience or at least the resources to actually make what you’re offering then… it doesn’t always go well! “I think it forces some reality on the projects. “It hasn’t affected anything with the way we work.”īrown is equally conclusive, adding that he sees it as being for the benefit of everyone involved. “For every project we’ve had on Kickstarter we’ve always had the prototype prior to launching, so it’s not like we’re just rendering up an idea and figuring it out once we get launched,” answers Doctor. So how does one of the most iconic success stories of the Kickstarter era view the website’s new ruling that bans renderings that could be mistaken for finished products? Through the course of a project the design is constantly refined through the CAD and the rendering files, giving the team not only designs that communicate their ideas, but materials that can be immediately put to use for marketing and advertising. “Even if the ideas are really rough and basic we’ll take the time to render them just because we’ve built all those assets over the years we can reuse scenes and asset materials so that from day one we’re providing really realistic visualisation renderings.” Having used VRay since the company was founded, MNML has brought its use forward from the final showcasing of the design to being the first concept presentation a client will see. “We use the 3D modelling tools to explore design variations quickly, so the time you’d normally spend sketching five variations of an idea, we can do much more precisely.” “When we sketch now we don’t sketch for our client, we sketch for ourselves to explore our ideas internally. “We’re happy to do that as it gives the same consistent look throughout all of our deliverables.”Īs Brown readily admits, it has definitely contributed to MNML’s design ethos of bringing a product to life. “It’s nice as we have the same rendering engine for our still renderings and our animations. In the last few years it has added more animation partially as a result of the Lunatik products, using Cinema 4D with a VRay plug-in. The key elements of the toolset revolve around designers working in Rhino or SolidWorks and using VRay’s dedicated plug-ins to produce renderings. “A slight dimensional change could totally change a design, and it’s better to explore those kinds of things in 3D.” First look We move into 3D quicker than others might because, with the type of projects that we do, we’re splitting millimetres at times. “Compared to a lot of firms we probably, I’m guessing, spend a little bit less time sketching. “Ever since day one we’ve been very 3D focussed,” explains Brown. “When Scott put Lunatik up on the platform it was definitely not widely known, and not a household name by any means, certainly not for product development.”Īside from its famous offshoots MNML has continued to work with its core customers, designing products for Nike, Xbox and Google, but its design process, whatever the client, remains true to the same ethos. “You’d have a sketch in your notebook and you’d not really have a place to go with it, then all of a sudden Kickstarter comes along in 2010,” says Doctor. Sat with Brown is MNML’s communications manager Gina Doctor, who expresses that this wasn’t a planned business shift, but something that arose out of Wilson’s passion for creative ideas. MNML’s design offices in the heart of Chicago
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