Absorbed in the Design Process – Hatsuri Trays

The past couple of weeks during a bit of down time, I have been experimenting with these textured trays for serving tea, snacks, etc. The tray’s are just one piece of wood with an adzed texture on the surface, but despite their simplicity I’ve been somewhat obsessively working over the details of these trays, trying out different proportions and profiles; exploring what works and what doesn’t.

The ideas for the these trays (I’m calling them hatsuri trays after the Japanese word for hewing – hatsuri) came out of another project, a more elaborate pair of trays I made for a newly wed couple, one of which is pictured below. (One great source of inspiration for these trays was Tazawa Yusuke. I’ve long been a fan of his work, please check it out.)

My concept when starting these trays was to create a textured panel using the chouna (Japanese adze). I designed the panels to float in a groove within the frame, allowing the panel to expand and contract. With a textured panel fitting into a groove you face some problems as a result of the textured surface being rather uneven. So my solution was to cut a uniform flat surface around the perimeter of the tray, creating an even surface that would cleanly fit within the groove in the frame. As soon as I cut the flat around the perimeter of the panel, immediately the textured surface left by the adze changed. The texture was elevated and became more prominent.

That simple flat cut had a huge impact on the appearance of the panels, and it felt like I had stumbled onto something interesting. So I simplified things by removing the surrounding frame, and dove in and started making tray after tray playing around with details, trying to achieve a good balanced design. I ended up making quite a few.

The adzed texture is the one feature that has more or less been set and unchanged as I’ve gone through different iterations of these trays. The rim and bottom details however have taken more work.

When it came to the rim, how deep and how wide the cut needs to be were my first considerations. On the framed trays above I cut a wide rim about 1/2″ (12 mm), but for a frameless tray that size seemed way too wide. Making the rim narrower gives it a slightly more delicate feel. A shallow depth of cut also makes the uneveness of the adze texture more apparent; it gives your eye the ability to trace the ever so slightly undulating edge.

Next up for consideration was the thickness of the tray. The first set of trays were 10 mm thick (a little bit over 3/8″). I made a few other variations of using 8, 12, and 15mm thick material. It’s surprising how much of a difference just a few millimeters can make on the overall visual effect. To my eye, the original 10mm thick trays had the right balance. The other trays seemed either too thin or too think, but 10mm was just right.

Another area I experimented with was the bottom of the trays. The bottom is not something you’ll really see until you pick up and handle the tray, but it felt important nonetheless. The design is as much about the feel of the surface as it is about the look. I played around with two ideas. One was a simple wide bevel under cut, that I quickly cut with some hand planes, making it a really fast design to execute. The other design was a soft curved undercut. I also rough cut this with a hand plane but then smoothed out the surface left by the plane with sandpaper to create a soft smooth transition. I like the look and feel of this surface a lot more than the flat bevel. The softness of the sanded curved surface contrasts better with the clean rim and organic surface left by the adze. The bevel seemed too hard both visually and to touch.

One final area that I experimented with was the shape of the rim. Lately I’ve been seeing a few designs where the edge of a table or chair seat gets gently curved, flowing into a narrow edge. My favorite example is this table made by Sashimono Takahashi. The curvature towards the edge is really subtle, but it has a great effect of softening and thinning out the edge.

So I thought I’d try something similar with the rim on the hatsuri trays. I already liked the soft curvature on the bottom side, so why not lightly curve the top edge too?

It’s subtle but you can see the result below. (Left flat rim, righ slightly curved)

Thinking this was going to be a nice detail I made a whole batch of trays with this edge, and when I stepped back to look at what I had done I was not super pleased. I think this profile works great on Takahashi-san’s table pictured above, but here something seems off. Something about it seems to clash with the flat textured surface, whereas the flat rim seems more complementary. Also by bringing the edge to a point, the actual feeling of the edge is sharp, which doesn’t exactly feel good on the hands.

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This whole process, experimenting and searching for the right balance in subtle details may seem convoluted but it served to remind me of how much the details matter. And figuring out the right balance in the details takes a lot of work. Making something simple, but impactful is really difficult. It requires lots and lots of experimentation and learning.

It’s fascinating to me why something like a small change in the thickness of the wood or a light curve vs flat surface can have a really profound effect.

Designing objects is not easy, and it truly is a skill that needs to be developed. I’ve started to think about designs like a photographer thinks about photos. Maybe you take 100 photos and 1 out of that batch will be really good. I think design is in many ways similar; not every idea you think of is going to be a hit, and good designs take multiple iterations to become the best they can be.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve been so excited about using Blender as a design tool. Blender gives you the ability to design objects and play with subtle details that can be explored through the programs ability to control lighting and textures. You can whip out a rough idea in blender in no time compared to making an actual prototype that requires a serious amount of time and effort.

One final thought about the design process, that is easier said than done, is to not to be too emotionally invested in your ideas. A few years back, when I was in art school, there was pressure to continuously produce new work. It was not the kind of pressure that I respond to well, and resulted in a desperate attempt to produce new work. On more than one occasion a new idea would pop into my head and in my stressed out state I would latch onto it like it was the next masterpiece. I feel like often those ideas are the worst, and the ones worth ignoring. It’s at least worth getting a bit a distance between yourself and the idea/design. If you can afford the time, taking a few days or weeks off and then revisiting the idea is a great way to get a clear head. Fresh eyes are important.

If you made it this far, thanks for your patience reading through these ramblings about design. Process is really important to me. Once I delve into a process or project I tend to become really absorbed, and lately I’ve been getting more and more absorbed in the process of design. Being both absorbed in the process and witnessing the changes that are happening at the same time is fascinating. Hopefully this stuff is interesting to some of you because there will probably be more posts like this to come.

Thanks for reading.