Be There From 9 To 5 With Customized Laser Cut Office Desktop Items
A personalized workspace makes for happy workers, and laser cutting is a fantastic way to provide clients with customized products that they will want to keep and use as a part of their daily grind. While different working environments have their own specific needs, there are a few products that will be familiar whether your office is at the top of a skyscraper or down in the basement.
Laser Cut Desktop Calendars
Keeping track of dates, schedules and all those important calendar entries is something best left to your digital devices; however the utility of having a physical calendar within eyeshot still runs true no matter how fancy the latest App download promises to be. Laser Cut Desktop Calendars become not only an interesting focal point for the office space, they also provide key information about the past and the future that keeps the productivity flowing.
Pictured above, the elegantly simple perpetual calendar made available on Laser Cut Plans by Renan Rozante lends itself well to custom laser etched details. This design would work just as nicely laser cut from acrylic, with the wide number of options available in the Ponoko Materials Library.
We can see a good use of both acrylic and post-processed laser etched details with the colorful calendar (below, left) from Be That Design. In order to make sure the laser etched text really pops, they filled the etched areas with paint to create a crisp, high-contrast visual. Taking a different approach to numerical display, the wooden flip calendar by Qaaim Goodwin (below, right) is simple but effective with numbers cut from the ply rather than etched on the surface.
Silhouettes are a hallmark of laser cut products, and calendars can also make good use of this visually arresting visual technique. A treat for Star Wars fans, PurnaProject’s desktop calendar (below, left) will have workers daydreaming of a galaxy far, far away. Another interesting approach is demonstrated in the Urban Calendars (below, right) from Robert Feyereisen. Referencing iconic 20th Century skyscrapers, an entire year is laser etched onto basswood veneer, with each date in its own little pop-out window.
Laser Cut Table Clocks
Keeping time is an important part of any work day, and it is handy to have a dedicated clock to let you know at a glance how your day is tracking. Laser cutting has long provided designers and makers with interesting possibilities for custom timepieces, whether through material usage or the addition of laser etched details to enhance the clock mechanism.
Pictured below is a retro-styled desk clock by RolphLaserCreations, that makes neat use of traditional laser cut assembly methods while still holding true to a mid-century design aesthetic. Alongside on the right is a castle-themed desk organiser clock from OlaDiClock that has the same tabbed construction, this time incorporating the material junctions as a graphic feature of the castle design.
The ubiquitous nature of dials and numbers means that it can be quite refreshing to visualise clocks in a different way from time to time. The Word Clock (below, left) is perhaps one of the most notable examples of this, and the clever concept has undergone a steady refinement by Doug Jackson. Laser cut precision gives the illuminated text a commanding presence on the display, with a refined finish that an engineer would be proud of. Another unconventional clock from All15Designs (below, right) uses laser cut steel to display the numbers along a separate plane to the face of the rotary mechanism in the centre.
Laser Cut Picture Frames
The smiling faces of families and loved ones adorn many workers’ desks, and it can add a lot of personality to do more with the choice of frame than the standard shiny rectangle. Laser cutting allows designers to explore their playful creativity with the form of the frame, as can be seen with the nostalgic tv frame design (below, left) from Phings and the specially designed Ultrasound Frame (below, right) from Gravi Art.
Frames aren’t only for pictures; displaying certificates, invitations and awards is also a big part of the office environment. The custom invitations from The Redd Press Shop (below) show how laser etched details are further enhanced by layering materials to add contrast and impact to the laser cut timber and card.
The workplace is an area where calendars, clocks and framed objects can create interest and personal connections. By designing these products for laser cutting and incorporating laser etched personalization, your brand can become a part of the daily grind in a positive, functional way.
Have you seen other clever laser cut office desktop products? Let us know in the comments below, and for more ideas for Agencies and Brands, see the other posts in the series.
