Do you ever wonder how the everyday objects in your house
get made?
Someone has to design them.
We're here at Delta Faucet to learn how creative people make
the things you use every day.
Follow me.
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HOST: Support provided by the Glick
Fund, a CICF a fund focused on inspiring philanthropy.
Additional support provided by the Christel DeHaan Family
Foundation, in honor of the children and families
of Christel House.
Inside this space, two groups have
to come together to create something that not only looks
good, but has to function.
Industrial designers create the look of the fixture, the form,
while engineers have to worry about the mechanism,
the function.
Both have to come together in good design.
I'm Jordan Baylor, and I'm an industrial designer
for Delta Faucet Company.
All through high school, I took ceramics,
photography, painting.
I did oil painting, of all things.
HOST: Really?
JORDAN BAYLOR: And my mom was a fine artist.
And she was a photography major and graphic design.
And so she really was always pushing me in that direction,
taking us to museums.
And my dad was an engineer.
And so it was science fair, science fair, you know,
physics.
It was you need to be an engineer.
You need to have a job that's going to pay the bills.
And I found myself really pulled.
In my mind, I had figured it all out.
I'm going to get a job at an engineering company
and work on their design team.
And she's like, oh, you don't want graphics.
You want product design.
You want industrial design.
And my jaw hit the ground, and I was
like, that's exactly what I want.
Like, sign me up.
What is that?
HOST: Yeah.
And I had no idea that that major was even offered.
How do you start finding design?
I mean, yeah, you talked about you can find inspiration.
I mean, what leads you to, like, hey, I need to make this,
or I want to make this faucet.
Where do you even start with an idea?
I know, faucets don't sound that exciting initially.
You know, faucets, toilets, showers,
you think, people design those?
But we actually do.
And that's my job.
Yeah.
So sometimes it's as simple as we
need a really, you know, ornate faucet, something
with a lot of detail.
And then I'll kind of start in that style category.
Or maybe it's something really clean and simple.
And then other times, you'll just find something,
like, oh, I love that dish or that chair.
And then I'll challenge myself to say, how can I
turn that into a faucet?
How can I make something different?
HOST: It gets to the idea you need to be observant.
You're gonna find inspiration.
You have no idea where, which tell me a little bit
about-- I see you've got sketching going on.
You have these milk jugs up here.
JORDAN BAYLOR: Yeah.
HOST: Take a look at it.
JORDAN BAYLOR: So I was shown these milk jugs the other day.
So the fact that this form goes from square to circle
was kind of the inspiration behind the [INAUDIBLE].
So I have that pulled up here.
I was looking at different finishes.
HOST: Oh, I see.
You can kind of show much it changes when
you're looking at materials.
So something that-- it's really sleek-looking, like chrome.
And then we can go in and see, well,
what would it look like in a really urban environment,
maybe?
HOST: Yeah.
And it kind of just changes the form a lot.
So when you're designing, which-- is it often the form
comes first or function?
Or in certain lines, does it change?
Every once in a while, we'll get
to have a really fun project where
we get to push engineering.
And if the design is so specific that our standard valves
and such won't work with it, we get
to do a little bit more unique things.
And we'll work with engineering.
So sometimes, engineering comes first,
and sometimes, design comes first.
And it just kind of depends on the design.
So the key is we want to try to use as many parts
as we already have as possible, because it reduces
the amount of time we have to spend on designing,
and it also makes it a lot more reliable, because parts
we know, they work.
And so that way, we can reuse them and reuse them in design.
So Jordan's done a really good job
with this design in making sure that it
fits some parts we already Have
Do you find often the case that you
have to go back to somebody like Jordan
and say, hey, this little thing you gotta tweak?
Yeah, sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah, sometimes, we get-- and sometimes, it's
hard to see until you get all the parts put
into it about whether the things are gonna fit correctly,
if there's maybe a little bit of radius here,
a little bit of angle there.
So we'll make little tweaks and suggestions.
And we'll kind of work with the industrial design
group back and forth to figure out what's gonna work
and what's not.
And generally, we come to a consensus that's
gonna work for everybody.
So is this something that's made here?
I mean, how long does it take you to get to wherever
it's created itself?
Well, the really cool part about this
is we have this technology in our own building.
So I can take Jordan's design.
We can work with all the engineering staff of getting
the internal details into it.
We can send it down to our model shop,
and a couple days later, we can have the part to try it out.
I really like to be able to work with them to get
their vision to production, because I think it's important
that, you know, what they see and what
they think the customer wants, it's
important to try to do what we can
to make sure that we're bringing that vision to reality.
So I like taking the challenge of trying
to not just fit existing stuff, but sometimes, make new parts.
So I really enjoy that collaboration aspect
of working together, and in the end,
everybody's happy with the result.
It's essential to get collaboration
with everyone else.
A lot of times, I'll say, you know, this is so close.
Something's not right.
And I'll take it over to one of my colleagues
and say, you know, what do you think about this?
What am I missing?
And sometimes, they'll just know right off the bat.
Oh, this needs to be a little wider.
Or maybe-- and we just feed off that.
And it changes and it evolves as you go.
And the design-- sometimes, you just need people around.
You need a second opinion.
And I trust these guys so much with their thoughts
and their design style.
OK.
So we're at the-- actually, where are we at, Jordan?
This is our employee break room.
Yeah.
Right.
So we're in the break room.
But what's really cool is-- so again, going back to the thing,
it's got a function.
So what's it feel like-- all right,
this is the working product, right?
It's very exciting.
It still feels kind of surreal, because I'm so used
to seeing it not working.
Right.
But here it is, and yeah-- it's a sense of pride
and a sense of accomplishment.
Wow.
I will never look at a faucet the same again.
What an awesome example of where artists and engineers come
together to create something that
has to look good and function.
For this project, I'm going to follow the pattern
of inspiration that Jordan had.
So I found something that I see often.
And that is colored pencils.
My goal-- take these colored pencils
and inspire a faucet design.
Sounds easy enough, but I have a feeling
it's going to be more difficult than I think.
Let's check out our supplies.
First thing, of course, are colored pencils.
Then I have a pencil, eraser, and a sketch book.
But any type of paper would work.
I also wanted something to build from.
So I grabbed this delta faucet for its clean, simple design.
Lastly, I'm going to step two and transfer this
to a digital format using a tablet.
I'm really excited to try this out.
Let's get started.
First step was to sketch out several ideas, simply
because I wasn't sure exactly how this was going to work.
Remember that this is simply a sketch,
so don't get caught up in trying to make it look perfect.
We're just throwing down some ideas here.
I can't draw a straight line myself,
so no, it's not cheating when you use a ruler to make
a straight line.
I decided to make the nozzle resemble the tip of the colored
pencil, which is not easy.
Once I had worked through my sketch,
I then started to transfer it over
to the tablet in a really similar way
that Jordan did over at Delta.
I don't see a lot of faucets on the market with color,
so of course, I'm going to add a lot.
All right.
I'm going to stop there for now.
But I'm having a lot of fun with this idea.
I really wanted to push the color,
since I don't see a lot of faucets with a lot of color.
I hope you got inspired by this.
And I cannot wait to see what you create.
Until next time, guys, stay art-rageous.
What involves volcanic ash, dangerous chemicals,
extreme heat, expert timing, ground pigment,
and expert creativity?
You guessed it-- fresco painting.
Check this out.
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Fresco painting using wet plaster
dates back to 1500 BC and the island of Crete in Greece.
Of course, fresco can be seen around ancient Greece,
as well, often within tombs depicting
scenes of everyday life.
There are even scenes of a couple dudes just reclining
at a banquet.
However, where we really see some incredible examples is
in the ancient city--