I Designed Sunglasses With a $200,000 3D Printer

I wanted to see what kind of crazy sunglasses I could design with some really high end 3D printers. This eyewear collection was inspired by the elements of earth, wind, water, and fire.

All content directed, designed and written by John Mauriello. John Mauriello has been working professionally as an industrial designer since 2010. He is an Adjunct Professor of industrial design at California College of the Arts.

00:00-00:37 Intro
00:38-01:27 These Go To 11
01:28-02:37 Collection Concept
02:38-05:45 Getting Weird with Houdini
05:46-07:16 First Samples
07:17-09:14 Second Samples
09:15-11:23 Design Refinement
11:24-12:54 Finishing Prototypes
12:55-13:24 Beauty Shots
13:25-17:34 Eyewear Pro Critique
17:35-19:26 So What's Next?

[LukeDorny]

Seeing them so cloudy was a little disheartening but then the gloss really elevated them with shiny depth. Fantastic video and entertaining brief for the project. That's a cool service.

[BenLevin]

This is terrific! These designs as they are now would be great to use in music videos and stylish movie stuff!

[juniorcasas]

John, this video goes to the Design books in its own right! Working with peers, mentors, collaboration, cross-functional team work, exploration of new advanced manufacturing technologies, and most importantly elaborating on the Design Process, the workflow, and beyond, when working on a project! Your best video yet! Very inspirational! Thank you!

[Hazdazos]

Cool designs, especially the fire ones. Still I have to say for a product like eyeglasses, I am disappointed not a single photo of someone wearing them. I realize these designs aren't particularly designed to be worn at this stage, but it would have been interesting to see them on someone's face. Cool stuff.

[patrickbayly]

The Earth ones are soo cool. I totaly agree with smoothing the nose pad, and contact points around the ears. They read Ice to me, more than earth, but they’re really cool.

[peterrudenko]

I imagine a group of top-notch wizards of those four elements wearing those glasses everywhere they go, but instead of plastic they actually made out of those elements in those shapes. They are AWESOME! I honestly wish I was one of those imaginary wizards just to be able to wear them "properly"

[KoolKyurem]

Honestly, if you applied the wind effect to aviator-esque frames. A little thicker to get the 3 dimensional effect of the inner design, with the filled in area above the bridge, I think you'd have a fashionable and wearable set of shades, which is rather impressive. I could definitely see more fashion-oriented folk gravitating towards it over tradition aviators.

[DeanJayJackmanJr]

Seems like a huge miss to not have anyone actually wear them.

[marc.levinson]

This is so awesome. Really great and tasteful application of the tech. It's been years and thousands of tiny improvements in 3D printing and procedural modeling to make this possible.

[brandonpham]

Earth, Wind, Fire, Water... now make the Avatar glasses frames, master of all four

[CJ]

Wow, I love these experimental designs, the wind one is my favourite because, while it looks conventional (shape wise), it has such a beautiful execution of 3D printing, AI Collaboration, and VFX tools to bring out something truely unique/new. Always enjoy your videos and this one was especially inspiring as a soon to be industrial designer myself.

[iKnowReview]

Right now, your Videos are the ones I look froward to the most - amazing job!

[RandyKadarman]

Amazing process and documentation! It's great to see all these new techniques come together in such a logical way. Btw, the memes and references were the true cherry on the top!

[martinesr]

Wow you are the Master! A big inspiration to people... i believe this is the way how it will go... from " cheap" 3d printing process built a unique product that looks luxurious and nothing like that exists... huge potential. Bravo

[Garage]

Very cool stuff! Any video with an appropriate Zoolander reference gets a thumbs up from me.

[riccvven]

the wind is sick, i'd buy it or make my own version, you should teach this stuff, is magic

[TheMorgantreeman]

I would wear the wind ones, but I think you should go around and let people try them on and your next video

[iSchmidty]

I want to rock those wind frames bad, they are so cool!

[javiermarti_author]

wow the wind model at 5:09 is super cool. You´re pushing the cutting edge of what´s possible with the latest tools. Super interesting. Well done

[pathikdesai]

Your video is a gold mine for new generation of designers!! Lovely design process.


Just a suggestion:
It would be nice to give an idea about how much time it took you to complete each face of design for new designers to get the full picture.