design icon: Christopher Conte

Christopher Conte was born in Bergen, Norway where he began drawing at age three. At age six, shortly after moving to New York, he started taking college art classes at Hofstra University following a recommendation from his first grade teacher. While still in high school he also attended St. John’s University under an advanced placement program. In the 11th grade he was awarded several scholarships to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Once at Pratt, he also studied human anatomy at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital through a program sponsored by Columbia University.

As an illustration major at Pratt, Christopher began creating his first mechanical sculptures as illustrations. His professors strongly encouraged this new direction and by his senior year, most of his work was three-dimensional. After earning a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art (BFA) from Pratt Institute, he entered the prosthetics field and began making artificial limbs for amputees in New York. Along with a combined love for sculpture, medical-science, and biomechanics, the field enabled Chris to apply his natural talents to help amputees, which he did for 16 years as a certified prosthetist. Creating sculpture, purely for the sake of being sculpture, however, never escaped as his deepest passion. In 2008, he began his career as a full-time artist.

Christopher uses a wide range of experience, along with diverse materials and construction techniques, to create his unique one-of-a-kind pieces. The work is usually a combination of original cast components with found / recycled parts using materials ranging from bronze to carbon fiber. Many of the exotic materials used in both the aerospace industry and the prosthetics field have found their way into his work. While a strong connection with robotics and technology is present in all of Chris’ work, ancient techniques such as lost-wax bronze casting have become an integral part of the process as well. The process involved in creating just one sculpture can often take months, sometimes, in the case of a series, several years to evolve.

In 2007, Christopher began offering these unique pieces for sale through galleries for the first time. In May 2008, Chris’ work went on display in a two person show at Last Rites Gallery owned by the legendary tattoo artist, Paul Booth. Less than one month later one of his sculptures went on display in National Museum in Washington DC. His sculptures have appeared on The Discovery Channel, Discover Magazine, The Learning Channel, MTV Networks in Popular Science and Wired Magazine. His work has also sparked the interest of the FBI, Lockheed Martin, and in 2008, Chris began working closely with former Northrop Grumman engineers and model makers.

In March 2009 Chris was asked to speak, take questions, and display his work at an international technology and design conference in Sweden called Material Fusion. In June 2009 Chris loaned several of his sculptures to the oldest museum in the United States, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass for a one-year exhibition.

Source from: http://www.freshbump.com/featured/fresh-cuts/christopher-conte/#more-1056

more info on christopher on: http://www.microbotic.org/

Exhibition structure Design by Qswitch

hello everyone, yes been busy again with my full time job, but this post is about what i have done for my current full time company. as i might have explained before, i am a servicing representative for a design company, most of the time we are only focused on design base works. On some occasion we did have exhibition and roadshows awarded by our client. Every year, most of the 3D works of the booth will be done by a 3rd party, since this time around, purchasing department have take in some control over the award of job, my current partners could only come up with 2 design for the pitch, and i have volunteer myself to conceptualize the 3rd booth design.

and yes, reason why i am post in today is, my design had been selected among 10's of design from 5 different major agency. boy am i happy! its a lil bit excited overall when it comes to people acknowledging your design works, when u r so interested in that but u din demonstrate it to public and doubt about your capability. at least i did have some people thinking the concept of the booth is great and later selected it, and i have a chance to make it alive. how cool is that?

Well to major player in the market i know it's no biggie, but a for design enthusiast like me, getting to know everything bit by bit by self taught i am very happy with todays result. even though the profit from work will be contributed to the company, but hey its great to see the booth design made to real.

alil bit of history or background of the work. its a coating company called Dulux (formerly known as ICI Dulux) a brand from AkzoNobel, the biggest coating company in the world. they have launched a new flourish logo in the SEA region. name of exhibition Archidex (2012) a professional show from renovation to home deco for the professionals. Since its a high profile show with many visitors from relevant sectors, i have take this advantage to design a big 3D block of the LOGO with around 8-9ft in height, by booth location in the front entrance, the logo will be introduced to everybody that enters the hall.

from a perspective point of view, the logo is sitting against a bunch of colorful 2ftX2ftX2ft cubic which i name as colorful pixels, matching with the brand motto "let's Colour". This had clearly shown the colors behind the brand offering consumers and professionals a wide range of color selection for interior and exterior. by not wasting th giant logo, i have incorporated pigeon hole at the back of the logo with product sitting in it, signifying a complete range of paint solutions that the company is offering to the pros. oh yeah its also a double deck booth with a vip lounge to discuss stuff.