“ First prize in FOC Talents Competition Q1 ”
FOC (Freedom of Creation) Talents is a network of pre-selected designers that are asked to create a Computer Aided Design every three months. The first FOC Talents competition brief was created by jewelry designer Ted Noten and published on January 1st 2010.
It always deeply surprised Ted Noten that the wedding ring has such a boring appearance. Two people decide to connect forever and they all wear the same stuff: gold and incidentally they put a little white gold with it or a little red gold or... Therefore he challenged the FOC Talents to come up with a new wedding ring design. As part of the submission the Talent had to make clear that he/she did research on the phenomenon Wedding-Rings through history and in different cultures. In the design it also had to be clear that 3D Printing and the nylon material were the only way to realize the design. So to say: technology and material follow function and its aesthetics.
On March 10th the jury consisting of Ted Noten, Frederik Roije and Janne Kyttanen came together to select a winner from these entries. After long deliberation the jury unanimously selected ‘Reality Check’ by Josien Pieters as winner. The jury praised Josiens’ witty approach to marriage and how she has translated both the historic Claddagh symbolism and today’s marriage reality into a playful ring. The ring, consisting of 5 pieces, can be worn in different configurations. Just like the historic Claddagh ring each item of ‘Reality Check’ is a symbol for marital status, allowing the wearer to communicate this to the outside world. The first status is the butterfly. The butterfly resembles the early stage of love, think happiness and freedom. The cage symbolizes marriage: the butterfly settles down and finds a place to stay. The pliers resembles divorce: the cage is cut open and the butterfly is let out again.
According to the jury ‘Reality Check’ fits perfectly to the current trend of people communicating their personal status to the outside world through (online) channels like Facebook. Also Josien Pieters has demonstrated with this design to comprehend and utilize the benefits of 3D Printing. 3D Printing allows producing this design more cost-efficiently than traditional manufacturing techniques: all 5 parts can be produced in one go and inside the small bounding box that was provided beforehand.
"Reality Check" is now for sale at the online FOC store in the material Laser Sintered Polyamide and is offered in three sizes.
The first prototype of a silver version of the ring is produced and looks promising. This ring will also be sold at the FOC store as soon as possible.