All posts in General Updates

I’ve been putting off updating my portfolio for months, and haven’t touched my blog since October of last year. Here’s me cracking the ice.

I guess I’ve just been really busy, but the bundle of work’s been building and it’s time to refresh. I guess I’ve been feeling a little restless lately and may be up for a change in pace pretty soon. I’ve been mulling around some great ideas for new products and am kind of on the lookout for talented SEs, EEs or MEs to join ranks with to start a new project on the side. If you’re idle and have some skills and a little energy for a side project, hit me up and let’s talk Kickstarter.

For the past few months I’ve been working on projects that span the gamut of product design (from toilets to tablets to lighting).

DUO-FLUSH should be on store shelves by the first or second week of September. Our MEs are still hustling away trying to right a few minor mechanical bugs, but hopefully all will be functioning consistently soon and production can begin full-scale.

Other projects I’ve been involved in for the last several weeks include an LED lighting design project for Lumian (a spin-off brand from Foxconn) and a new tablet / reader project for Qualcomm.

More updates to come.

I’ve been sort of ‘away’ for the past few months doing work for a local engineering / industrial design firm here in Silicone Valley, which has evolved into a full-time in-the-office gig. But as the title suggests, new and exciting projects are cued up in the pipeline. I’ve been in talks with a local battery technology company here in the valley, and if all goes well (which it looks like it should), I’ll be working on form studies for batteries that could end up in upcoming hybrid vehicles. (Prius, to be exact). But let’s not jump to conclusions.

I conceptualized these fixtures during my industrial design internship at Peerless / Acuity Brands Lighting in Berkeley last year. Now that the non-disclosure period is over, I can finally show them. (Peerless is producing a third concept I can’t show here just yet, due out by the end of summer.)

Both fixtures utilize two energy-efficient T5 bulbs and a single ballast that run the length of the fixture. I like to refer to the first one as the “Architect,” since that was the target client for this project. Due to the nature of the product, the general form factor was confined to a rectilinear form. But “Architect” plays with slight asymmetry, creating dynamic angles that give the viewer a different impression from either side of the fixture. “Architect” is a very efficient, 100% indirect suspended lighting fixture.

The second fixture is 10% direct / 90% indirect lighting. The concept behind this unit was to create a negative space that orbits the underside of the form, allowing a controlled amount of light to escape through the crevice and produce a soft ring of light. The sharp angles of the fixture combined with the roundness of the end caps create a harmony between soft and industrial aesthetics. The fixture gives off a variety of impressions when viewed from different angles and distances.

Both fixtures are now featured on the FMF site here.

KELP is a point-of-purchase fixture for displaying Fedaboa’s clamshell belt buckles. The inspiration behind the buckles and their belt line come from pearl divers, so when they said they wanted a plant-like structure that could be built-up and expanded on, I came up with the Kelp concept.

Kelp is a simple structure optimized for inexpensive manufacturing. Standard 1/4″ and 1/8″ acrylic (or sturdy plastic alternative) can be easily laser-cut and assembled. Extension and trunk tubing can be manufactured from standard 2″ acrylic tubing. The dome cap and tubing can be threaded for easy screw-on and screw-off assembly. Retailers can easily assemble the fixture in-store with limited instruction.

The organic tessellation you’re seeing here is inspired by rabbits and their multiplicity (and their beady little eyes)! The curtain’s dimensions are 30″ wide x 72″ in length, fitting a standard doorway. Multiple curtain units can be linked together to divide larger spaces, such as lofts or shared work spaces.

The same tessellation pattern can be used as tiles to cover a wall in a modern home setting, a suave club environment, or a swanky hotel. Imagine water cascading over the tile’s relief, creating a shimmer of texture and bouncing light.

The dome of the rabbit’s ‘eye’ captures the environment it inhabits, compressing everything it ‘sees.’ Placed against a window, the domes encapsulate what’s outside, creating a kaleidoscopic view while providing a bit of privacy for those on the inside. The individual tiles are flat on the back and have a domed relief on the face.

I added a new page to my website at http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com/tile.html to feature the tessellation.

I know that at least a few of you out there are Independent Contract Designers, or “Freelancers.” Have you gotten all the information you need to start paying your quarterly taxes? If you’re independent, your employer is not paying quarterly taxes to the government on your behalf. (Yes, this is my home office in the picture

I thought I’d point out a few of the resources I discovered while trying to figure out my tax responsibilities as an independent contractor. First, here are the tax quarter break-downs and due dates according to my tax advisor:

April 15
(Jan – March 31st payment)

June 15
(Apr – May 31st payment)

Sept 15
(June – Aug 31st payment)

Jan 15
(Sept – Dec 31st payment)

You’ll need to pay both Federal and State estimated taxes if you live in California. Here are links to sites that allow you to make your quarterly payments to the IRS, free of charge (and paper-free):

EFTPS (Federal)
CA Franchise Tax Board

Normally, an employer also pays half of your Social Security and Medicare obligation for you. As an Independent Contractor, you’ll have to pay both your half as well as your employer’s half (for a total of 15.3%), doubling what you would normally owe if you were conventionally employed. My tax guy advised me to pay around 25% of my income to Federal and 10% to State. We’ll see a the end of the year whether I owe more or receive a refund based on these percentages.

All of this information is what I have come to understand while researching my own tax obligations. Before taking my word for it, make sure you do your own research and come to your own conclusions. It’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to taxes, so double-check these figures. If you know something I don’t, please post it here so we can all benefit from the information.

If you need help getting started, you might want to take a peek at the small business section of the IRS website.

The Form Meets Function blog, hosted as a subdomain at blogspot.com, now has a custom URL as a subdomain of the FMF site. The new blog address is http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com.


Blogger makes it easy to redirect your blogger blog to a custom URL. This is especially handy if you have an undesirably lengthy blogger URL (mine was http://www.FMF-FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com). I recommend converting your blog’s URL if you want to help drive traffic to your main site. There was just too much of a disconnect between the FMF blog and the main FMF site — at least now they share the same root URL.


There are two basic steps to converting your blog’s URL. First, you’ll need to set up a subdomain of your website. In my case, I set up blog.FormMeetsFunction.com by logging into my host’s Cpanel. What this does is it essentially creates a folder named ‘blog’ in your root directory. You have to make sure you redirect the CNAME DNS to ghs.google.com. If you have trouble figuring this out, contact your host and they’ll assist you, or follow the link at the end of this post.


Next, you’ll need to sign in to your blog and navigate to Settings — Publishing — Advance Settings. Type your new subdomain (in my case, http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com) into the text field labeled Your Domain, and click Save Settings.
Test out the link by clicking View Blog. Your blog should now be redirected to the new subdomain your just set up.


When I initially went through this process, I was presented with a redirect page that asked if I really wanted to be redirected to http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com In order to get rid of this message, I submitted my site to Google Webmaster. This effectively removed this message, since the Google Webmaster now has record of http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com as a valid domain to redirect to. You can sign in to Google Webmaster Central here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/


Feel free to post any questions, or go to http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373 for a pretty thorough explanation of how to get your custom blogger domain set up.

From what I understand, the main differences between linking your blog to Facebook via RSS Graffiti vs. linking through Notes is a) quicker updates, and b) RSS Graffiti apparently only shows a portion of your post, forcing followers to click on a link that redirects them to your actual blog. This is a good thing if you’re trying to increase traffic / page views to your blog.