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06          

PRODUCT DESIGN / PROTOTYPING


SISYPHEAN COUNTER


CLIENT
PERIOD

ROLES 
TOOLS



DESIGN CHALLENGE
FEB 1 - 8, 2018

DESIGN, FABRICATION

ADOBE AI, LASER CUT


Overview

To fulfill a design challenge,  I fabricated this first prototype of a Sisyphean counter.

The challenge was to design a physical object that can sit on a desk that allows a user to count up or down (one object accomplishes both behaviors). The target audience is someone who wants to keep a numeric tally and have a physical reminder of their progress to display for themselves and others on their desk. The single object should allow the user to easily record single increments of change— either counting forward toward a target or backwards from it.

Inspiration

We have all had bouts of existential crisis at work doing the same mundane tasks again and again. I certainly have.

My design draws inspiration from Camus’ interpretation of Sisyphus, which heralds him as an absurd hero. Although the gods punished Sisyphus to roll a boulder up and downhill for all of eternity, he is freed upon accepting the absurdity of his fate and choosing to be happy. I believe this is a healthy philosophy to keep in mind in the workplace.



Here, Sisyphus is placed on an ellipse to emphasize eternal loop. Miniscule numbers 0-99 border his infinite trajectory and is displayed through a magnifying glass fixed in the boulder to symbolize the distortion of time.

To count up, the user can turn the dial clockwise and thereby subject our hero to rolling the boulder uphill.
To count down, the user is able to visualize the boulder rolling downhill by turning the dial counter-clockwise.