Recently, I was experimenting with a new illustration style. Rather than render an object in its whole, I abstracted the representation slightly by using geometric planes. At first, I tried using polygons but the overall effect was jumbled and not quite what I wanted.
After doing some reading about polygons and geometric planes, I eventually came across Delaunay triangulation. The mathematics behind them are fascinating but I was instantly drawn to their application to my problem.
After drawing a couple of simple objects with Delaunay triangles, I decided to apply them to an idea I had for a series of prints. My friend Steve is passionate about mid-century modern furniture and we’d recently had a conversation about the work of Charles and Ray Eames.
With that conversation fresh in mind, I drew the Eames’ classic chairs with Delaunay triangles, wrote a short history of each chair, and had the finished posters printed on a beautiful mocha FSC paper.
The finished posters:
Eames DAW (Dining Height Armchair Wood Base)
Eames DSW (Dining Height Side Chair Wood Base)
Eames DSR (Dining Height Side Chair Rod Base)
Detail of the so-called Eiffel Tower base
Detail of the DAW seat
It was only after I finished my prints (and drawing hundreds and hundreds of precise triangles) that I discovered DMesh – a beautiful little piece of software that will render a vector version of any raster images with Delaunay triangles. Oh well. ;)