Design Inspiration

A Club Night with Ken Briffett Wednesday 16th June 2003

Tonight we are to be treated to a talk on design by our very own Ken Briffett. Ken has always surprised everyone with his revolutionary design concepts for his competition entries, and we hope that he will impart some of his knowledge to us all. Ken is what I call an "Envelope Stretcher". He can take a design brief and stretch the envelope of possibility to astound any layman woodturner.

A very pensive Ken waited apprehensively for all of the usual club night opening business to be done.

We were informed by the Chair person that John Hilton had just had a Triple Bypass operation and that Arthur Ellis had just had a Knee operation, we all wish them both well for a speedy recovery.

On display on the table was what looked like a porcupine? It was in fact a huge Pine Cone. Hiding behind a flip chart we could just see various other odd looking but interesting things. This all served to whet our appetite for what was to come.

Ken explained that design can not just be picked up, like some other skills. It must be acquired over a long time. Using the letters of the alphabet to illustrate what design is all about, Ken showed how the letter forms are not as first would seem. Some have curved sides and some have circular serifs, some also have elliptical serifs. He went on to point out that some letters like the "C" have their top and bottom curves above or below the letter lines, this is designed to "look right". Also some letters have more space around them for the same reason.

Moving onto turning, Ken showed a couple of different bowls which he had made, with different finishes, which gave them each a different look. As a design aspect, the finish should be considered at the stage of choosing the wood for a particular project.

Ken explained using various visual aids, how the different colours co-relate with each other. Relating this to wood, some woods do not go well together, i.e. Oak & Mahogany, mainly due to the grain structure as well as the colour.

Again using visual aids, Ken explained how positive and negative work together in design. Moving back to bowls etc., Ken demonstrated how the orientation of the grain can produce quite striking effects.

The large fir cones were to get everyone thinking about design. In particular how nature has good examples of design and that we should always only copy good examples, and not copy bad copies of copies.

Ken showed various wall sculptures that he had produced on the lathe. These showed all the aspects of design that he had been telling us about. Colour texture contrast all played their part in making these sculptures so pleasing to the eye.

This concluded Ken's very interesting talk. The thunderous show of appreciation from the audience made Ken almost blush.    WELL DONE KEN.

The competition entry marks were given out, followed by the raffle. (I did not win anything as usual).

Another good club night came to an end.

Derek Blake - June 2004