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Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Designing and making luxury handbags with AutoCAD LT
AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk: For more than 30 years, Wendy Stevens has built an illustrious career designing and making metal handbags by hand. These stunning, luxury bags have even graced the pages of Vogue.
5 comments:
Ana Schroeder
said...
For some reason, I had never thought about using AutoCAD to design handbags. I guess now that I’m thinking about it, it kind of makes sense. In my brain, handbags fall under costumes, but I can see how they could also be similar to a prop, and I can understand drafting a prop using AutoCAD. I can see how AutoCAD would be preferable to other applications, such as Adobe Illustrator, if one is making complex designs that need to be replicable. It also makes sense to use something like Adobe Illustrator to design it and present it to makers. However, if the intention is to make fabric patterns or something similar, it would help to have precise drafting if you do not want to do it by hand. When I look at the photos up close, I can't quite tell the medium of the bag, whether it is made out of fabric, metal, or both. Upon clicking on the larger article, it does say it is sheet metal, which now certainly makes sense to draft on AutoCAD.
I thought that this article was really cool. As someone who wants to go into costume design, I often get frustrated with drafting because I think that it’s not directly related to what I want to do and our teacher did tell us that costume designers don’t really look at ground plans and it’s not of interest to them. I was also really stressed about learning to work with AutoCAD because I am not really good at technology and it did not seem very applicable to what I want to do. However, I have thought many many times about becoming a handbag designer or shoe designer. It was really interesting to learn about how you could use AutoCAD to design these products and all the different materials you could use to make them. It definitely opened my eyes to many different possibilities with AutoCAD. For someone who owns a business, it seems like AutoCAD really helped Wendy Stevens for the better, and seems like it would increase her profits and even her creative capabilities.
Handbag designing and AutoCAD are not necessarily two fields I expected to be able to be related, and I think it is incredibly cool that Wendy Stevens can use a technology specialized for more technical drafting to make a fashion accessory. Whenever I think about AutoCAD or other similar software, I think of them as only being useful for a relatively small group of people. While this is often true, using it to design handbags makes me think that some people and fields could benefit from this sort of technology. I'm not entirely sure who these people would be, but this article just shows that it is possible. I also appreciated the focus on the fact that digitizing her work allowed Stevens to add additional security as well as convenience to her work. One of the most interesting things about technical theater is how we so often borrow products from other fields to use for ourselves, and I feel as though many other industries could benefit from that same logic.
I’ve never heard of Wendy Stevens or metal designer handbags but it was a really interesting read! I think it’s actually inspired me for welding class to aspire to make a rigid super heavy handbag. I enjoyed reading that she was able to use CAD to change how she thinks about designing her bags after the fire in her studio. I wish the article touched a bit on why she chooses to make purses out of metal though because I would definitely not think a luxury handbag that appealed to major fashion magazines and pop culture would do well. Unlike Stevens I think I have a harder time designing things in CAD than when I sketch things out on paper first then translate it to CAD. Some people see CAD as a design tool which I also agree on, but for me it’s mostly the last step of a design process where I lay down how I want it exactly with a few adjustments here and there to make it practical and easier to construct.
This was such an interesting article to read. I had no idea people were using Auto CAD or any CAD program to make like designer goods. That thought just never crossed my mind. I mean I guess it makes sense since CAD stands for computer assisted design but still it is just something that I never would have thought about. Let alone the light version of the CAD product. When I think of a CAD program I think of architecture or like machine building. I definitely do not think about using it to make a template to cut out a yard of leather, but I mean if it works, it works I guess. I mean I could maybe see in a fast fashion world where everything is built by machines that a CADded garment could be helpful to just send to the machines and they make it but not necessarily in a designer fashion world but still interesting non the less.
5 comments:
For some reason, I had never thought about using AutoCAD to design handbags. I guess now that I’m thinking about it, it kind of makes sense. In my brain, handbags fall under costumes, but I can see how they could also be similar to a prop, and I can understand drafting a prop using AutoCAD. I can see how AutoCAD would be preferable to other applications, such as Adobe Illustrator, if one is making complex designs that need to be replicable. It also makes sense to use something like Adobe Illustrator to design it and present it to makers. However, if the intention is to make fabric patterns or something similar, it would help to have precise drafting if you do not want to do it by hand. When I look at the photos up close, I can't quite tell the medium of the bag, whether it is made out of fabric, metal, or both. Upon clicking on the larger article, it does say it is sheet metal, which now certainly makes sense to draft on AutoCAD.
I thought that this article was really cool. As someone who wants to go into costume design, I often get frustrated with drafting because I think that it’s not directly related to what I want to do and our teacher did tell us that costume designers don’t really look at ground plans and it’s not of interest to them. I was also really stressed about learning to work with AutoCAD because I am not really good at technology and it did not seem very applicable to what I want to do. However, I have thought many many times about becoming a handbag designer or shoe designer. It was really interesting to learn about how you could use AutoCAD to design these products and all the different materials you could use to make them. It definitely opened my eyes to many different possibilities with AutoCAD. For someone who owns a business, it seems like AutoCAD really helped Wendy Stevens for the better, and seems like it would increase her profits and even her creative capabilities.
Handbag designing and AutoCAD are not necessarily two fields I expected to be able to be related, and I think it is incredibly cool that Wendy Stevens can use a technology specialized for more technical drafting to make a fashion accessory. Whenever I think about AutoCAD or other similar software, I think of them as only being useful for a relatively small group of people. While this is often true, using it to design handbags makes me think that some people and fields could benefit from this sort of technology. I'm not entirely sure who these people would be, but this article just shows that it is possible. I also appreciated the focus on the fact that digitizing her work allowed Stevens to add additional security as well as convenience to her work. One of the most interesting things about technical theater is how we so often borrow products from other fields to use for ourselves, and I feel as though many other industries could benefit from that same logic.
I’ve never heard of Wendy Stevens or metal designer handbags but it was a really interesting read! I think it’s actually inspired me for welding class to aspire to make a rigid super heavy handbag. I enjoyed reading that she was able to use CAD to change how she thinks about designing her bags after the fire in her studio. I wish the article touched a bit on why she chooses to make purses out of metal though because I would definitely not think a luxury handbag that appealed to major fashion magazines and pop culture would do well. Unlike Stevens I think I have a harder time designing things in CAD than when I sketch things out on paper first then translate it to CAD. Some people see CAD as a design tool which I also agree on, but for me it’s mostly the last step of a design process where I lay down how I want it exactly with a few adjustments here and there to make it practical and easier to construct.
This was such an interesting article to read. I had no idea people were using Auto CAD or any CAD program to make like designer goods. That thought just never crossed my mind. I mean I guess it makes sense since CAD stands for computer assisted design but still it is just something that I never would have thought about. Let alone the light version of the CAD product. When I think of a CAD program I think of architecture or like machine building. I definitely do not think about using it to make a template to cut out a yard of leather, but I mean if it works, it works I guess. I mean I could maybe see in a fast fashion world where everything is built by machines that a CADded garment could be helpful to just send to the machines and they make it but not necessarily in a designer fashion world but still interesting non the less.
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