Whereas the design of a knife is a mental exercise done with
pencil and paper, the spark that sets the whole process in motion comes from the
environment. One can say that inspiration is external and design internal. A
good designer is always exploring his environment for inspirational material.
The search for inspirational objects or materials can be as rewarding as the
discovery as one learns about history, natural history, ecology, geology,
mechanics, and sociology, a bit of everything under the sun.
A museum is a good place to start your explorations, as you can see old tools
and weapons and learn more about the people who used or made it. You can also
see a wide range of objects from antiquity to modern times, all of which were
designed for some purpose and according to certain aesthetic criteria. Seeing
how a Stone Age wife decorated her clay pots might give you an idea for the
texture or damascus pattern of the next knife.
This is just one example of the countless possibilities awaiting any designer
who has learned to look at everything around him with a mind that is ready to
grasp at the slightest indication that the object he is looking at can lead to
an improvement or some new feature in his work.
"The eyes are the windows of the soul” What you look at, read, touch and see
each day not only influences your life, but your designs as well.
Inspiration from nature
Very few natural shapes resemble knives: blades of grass, teeth and some leaves.
The richness of natural inspiration does not only lie in the shape of the
resultant knife, but in all of the design elements. If you are looking for
complete knives in natural objects you will soon be discouraged, you need to
look more carefully and consider all the elements of design as well as all the
parts that make up a knife.
Look past the whole, study each individual feature of the object and discover a
new world of design. Sometimes you need to turn an object upside down. Sometimes
one needs to delve deeper, past the skin and muscles to the very bone to find
truly inspiring shapes.
An afternoon spend behind a microscope will reveal a huge source of shapes and
patterns. The wing of a fly, the business end of a wasp and a bee's knee will
show that the closer you look the better it gets.
A walk in the park or a local woodland will reveal more patterns and textures
than you can use in a lifetime. By taking along some thin, strong paper and a
few wax crayons you will be able to make rubbings of all the interesting
textures, surface and patterns found on rocks, tree trunks, dead wood, leaves,
etc.
Most knifemakers use a random pattern when texturing blades, or jigging bone. By
going through a selection of rubbings, one is bound to find a pattern that will
fit the knife to the hilt.
Scrimshaw and engraving is often done to reveal the whole or part of a picture.
How about asking your favourite scrimshander to zoom in by a factor of ten,
twenty or even a hundred? Why make a miniature leopard on a life size knife?
Place the handle on a leopard skin and duplicate the pattern that is covered on
a one to one scale. The glistening scales of a rainbow trout or the magnified
wing of a butterfly will make for magnificent scrimshaw.
Inspiration from man made objects
As was stated at the beginning of this chapter, a museum is a good place to
start your explorations into the world of design. One of the first things you
may notice is that very few things are made with purpose as sole criteria.
Mankind has a built in need to make the objects he uses pleasing to the eye and
comfortable in use. It also becomes clear that design is subjective; beauty is
in the eye of the beholder.
As designer, you need to please yourself, if the work you are doing is not to
your taste it is not worth doing. As a businessman doing design and making for
an income, your work must be pleasing to your customers, else it is also not
worth doing. You need a place to stand between these two extremes, where you
will be able to do the work you like and make a living at it, or if you are
pursuing a hobby, cover the cost of tooling and materials.
By studying objects made for mass consumption one can easily fall into the trap
of mediocrity, where you will be competing with the factories whose market is
the average buyer.
The things that inspire me:
The Human Figure
