Inspired Speaker

Objective: Create a ceramic phone speaker that utilizes structural and / or specific design elements from a piece of ceramics found in the history of Ceramics

Culture Studied: Italy (15th century)

Speaker Research: Ceramic Phone Speakers

Reflection: In our initial stages of research I decided to dive deeper into a 15th century jar from Italy. Its unique ‘lobed leaf pattern’ was really intriguing, it reminded me of both seaweed and trees. This piece is made of earthenware clay and is topped with a tin-based glaze, a technique also known as maiolica. To connect my speaker to the example one from Italy, I carved and glazed the blue ‘lobed leaf’ pattern along the sides, and outlined them in a brown-ish color to incorporate the line work used in the original. I decided to keep the design because that is what initially drew me to it, but alter the shape. I chose to form my speaker like a megaphone because not only did I think functionally it would behave more like a speaker, but I liked the statement of it. My speaker is effective in slightly amplifying and changing the sound that comes out of my phone. This is due to the shape of my speaker and where my phone goes into the speaker. The phone sits in the narrow part of my speaker and the sound travels down and outward through the wider mouth, helping to amplify it. To get clearer results, I would seal off the back of the speaker and make sure the inside of the narrow part(where the phone sits)is really smooth so there's no divots that could create echos. Everyone in our class did a phenomenal job with their speakers! I loved getting to see everyone create them, ask questions about them, and admire their final results. However, I thought Carly’s dog speaker was really impressive, the shape and attention to detail were awesome. The body of the dog was a narrow cylinder and she crafted the dog head out a separate chunk of clay. She smoothed it all out, fired it, then glazed it brown. I assume the most challenging part was the dog head, making it look both realistic and proportional to the body. She did a great job creating this speaker and I think it would make such fun decor!