TGM NEWS — design

Carving Pumpkins The Skilled Edition

HALLOWEEN from The Good Mod on Vimeo.

LED Signature Wall for Pollinate

We recently completed a second project for major Portland ad agency Pollinate. For their entrance area they requested a color-enhanced signage piece recessed into their wall. We created a 10-plus-foot tall steel-framed door with reclaimed wood and a laser cut rust patina steel panel that carries the client's logo. 

Set behind this signature wall are network-controlled LED strips, which can interactively change colors based on input from sensors. We programmed them so that the color that glows through the wood panels gradually shifts through the spectrum: Barely noticeable upon first glance, the changes happen over the course of approximately 3 hours. Watch a timelapse video below.

Working with microprocessors and programming panels was a great exploration and we look forward to doing more of this in the future. We're glad Pollinate liked it too!

"Everyone (staff, clients, random visitors) LOVES the sign/door! It’s a really great piece to walk off the elevator and see. Thanks again for another amazing piece of work!" - Laura Runkle, Pollinate

Designing the Pollinate Pitch Experience

The last few months have been massive for the team at The Good Mod, with many big new projects secured, some fully underway, and one of our largest ones to-date just completed: the conference room and pitch stage for Pollinate, a fast-growing interactive branding and advertising agency in Portland, which was just recently voted 2015 Advertising Age Northwest Small Agency of the Year.

photos by Arthur Hitchcock

Concept

The prompt was straightforward: develop lighting and a conference table to seat 15 people comfortably in a fairly small space of 21 feet by 18 feet. Goal was to provide an arena for multi-directional presentation that navigates both digital and analog work, while delivering an intriguing experience for Pollinate’s most important clients.

Taking inspiration from the energetic aesthetic of the agency, lead designer Brock Odalovich and owner-designer Spencer Staley decided to push Pollinate’s momentum to the extreme: surrounding the presenter with crystalline slabs of sheet metal visually breaking out of the ground, the design’s dramatic vortex explodes under a sci-fi inspired spotlight.

The table

The table’s major challenge was to seat that many people with enough leg room in such tight space, and identifying the need for maximum floor space for multi-directional presentation. Lead designer Brock Odalovich's solution was a horseshoe-style design with a base-less cantilever table that is sturdy and still allows for enough floor space around the presentation pit.

The base was created out of 1200 pounds of individually laser cut and hand-welded asymmetrical pieces of sheet metal. Special feat was the integral joinery in order to make the table base break down for a standard residential elevator. The tabletop iced the cake: 15 pieces of differently adjoined veneer pieces framed by oak hardwood edging visually extend the cascading facets of the steel base.  

The light

Hovering above, Spencer Staley’s lighting design extends the crystalline language of the table with five individually shaped pyramidal boxes clustered into a star-shaped chandelier.  Exploding into sharp angles, the 300 pound LED light piece is capped with removable shade panels covered in technical light diffusing fabric—all results of exciting new experiments in the use of materials. 

 

"From the initial brainstorming session to the final installation  we couldn’t have ask for a better experience working with The Good Mod. The creativity they brought into our showcase conference room leaves a powerful impression on our clients as they come to visit. We can’t wait to work with them on another project!" 

- Laura Runkle, Pollinate

A touch of TGM in the Pope Mobile

Custom projects at The Good Mod come in all shapes and sizes, from multiples to one-off projects of custom routing, engraving, and other 3D modeling and rendering. We recently helped Kendall Mingey of Cupolette realize the walnut base for the Portland Rose Reliquary, which traveled with Mayor Charlie Hales and First Lady Nancy Hales to Rome for a two-day summit on cities and climate change hosted by the Vatican, and was gifted to Pope Francis. We hear it even rode in the Pope Mobile!

The hand-crafted bronze rose on a walnut base, acts as a reliquary, which has a small compartment in the bud at the center, in which several seeds from Portland’s white roses were placed. The engraving reads: “From Portland, the City of Roses, for His Holiness, Pope Francis, 2015.” 

To read more about this historic Vatican summit held in July 2015, visit First Stop Portland and Mayor Hale's blog on portlandoregon.gov.

TGM CRAFTS ARCHITECTURAL MODEL FOR SKYLAB

A recent project to come through our workshop doors came from a nearby neighbor. Skylab Architecture. We were commissioned to fabricate an exact architectural model of a private residence. Utilizing digital design + fabrication techniques, we were able to create a large scale model out of plywood with our CNC. The hand-built house model was then added to the topographical landscape. The dowels are placed to indicate trees on the property.

Photos by Arthur Hitchcock