Posts tagged design
Makin' Latex
KINK ENGINEERING: The life and times of a latex saleswoman...
ALERT: We will be suspending sales on the Kink Engineering section of our online store next week, for 6 days.
This will only effect the Kink Engineering section of the store:
All hoods, vacbeds, capes, sleep sacks, and the like will be offline from Saturday April 28th to Friday May 4th.
All sheeting will still be online for purchase and we will be shipping out sheeting at our usual snappy pace.
Why close the KE store for a week?
We have a bunch of back-orders that need to be finished (a bunch of which were waiting on our recent shipment of black sheeting), a bunch of design for a new line of products (watch this blog!), and a performance coming up at the Torture Garden Toronto event.
So to serve you better in the long run, we’re going to not serve you for a few days.
During this time we will also be doing some revision on our online store to make it function better for our customers.
Thank you for your patience and patronage.
From a customer: About our Vacbeds
“WOW…. Your company builds a great product which both of us are extremely pleased. What a great sensation. Truly holds the suction for a long time. Thank you and I hope to send some new business your direction.” ~Happy Customer
You know… it’s REALLY hard to do good work in the business of creating products, when faced with competition from other companies that only seek to sell LOTS of products, not stick to selling good products.
It takes a constant pressure to improve what you can, and to maintain what you have made great already. It takes willpower to avoid the quick buck of shipping the work offshore where it’s cheap, but also totally un-customizable, and un-supervised and far worse un-cared-about. It takes the ability to say NO to other things. It takes the ability to understand not just what the customer is willing to buy, but what they really want, and how they intend to use your product - then design it from top to bottom as a good experience. It also means listening and learning when it goes wrong.
So with all that to be done to make a good product - it’s natural that you end up burned out after a while. But it’s all worth while when a customer sends you something like this. A little reminder that your hard work has actually made someone’s dream into a reality.
Summary:
- My design made someone happy today.
- Then they let me know they were happy… so I’m happy too.
- Me and my employees earned a living wage, which is honest and reasonable.
- The customer paid a fair price for something they really wanted without flashing lights and false advertising.
- The world is net-positive on this transaction.
Awesome.
P.s. If you don’t know what a Vacbed is… click through this image
OK. We have clearance to tell you what film we were working on!
PACIFIC RIM
Guillermo del Toro - Director
Release: Summer 2013
We can’t tell you what we made for them (quite a few things we made actually) but we’ll be sure to show you more of our work when the film comes out in summer 2013!
The Kink Engineering Crew and the Ego Assassin Crew worked together on the project and we are forming a small collective specific to film costuming for future projects (more on that later)
Exciting… now the waiting begins for the big screen debut.
Pacific Rim - Synopsis:
“When an alien attack threatens the Earth’s existence, giant robots piloted by humans are deployed to fight off the menace.”
Pasific Rim - Cast Highlights:
- Idris Elba - as seen in The Wire
- Ron Perlman - as seen in Hellboy
- Charlie Day - as seen in Always sunny in Philidelphia
(via Pacific Rim - IMDb)
Back to work on the lucha stuff. Archean needs a new hood.
I have done this without knowing it on some products and had great success.I have not done this on other products (tried to please EVERYONE, Tried to solve ALL problems) and failed.
But now I know why, and that’s going to make my batting average much MUCH better.
“After working with a wide variety of designers, my opinion is that the role of design is:
- Understanding what most users want.
- Prioritizing and Focusing on the most important of those wants.
- Using this knowledge to exceed user expectations.”
~ Michael Loop
(via oberservationpaper)
Lust Love Latex: About laser cut fishnets
From the Lust Love Latex Blog: Original Article Here
“Laser cut latex fashion has been a big thing this year, both for the more established latex designers as well as the DIY latex enthusiasts out there.
The latest craze on the laser cut fashion front-line is these amazing Latex Fishnet Stockings from Ego Assassin.
I asked James from Ego Assassin, how they came up with this idea “We got the idea to make latex fishnets because over the years many of our customers have asked us if it was possible to make such a thing. We have always had to say no because we couldn’t think of a way to cut a fine and consistent mesh pattern into latex, and still maintain any semblance of durability. I know that many latex designers — ourselves included — have attempted to solve this problem with a variety of appliqué-based approaches, but the final product was always rather bulky and the look was never quite right.” He continues “When Kink Engineering announced they would be offering laser-cutting services to the latex industry, one of our first thoughts was that it could be used to finally make a true fishnet latex stocking. We experimented with various laser settings, hole shapes, and mesh densities, until we arrived at a pattern that worked.”
So how the stockings are produced? James explains “The stockings are made by laying a sheet of latex into the laser machine, and cutting the whole stocking in one piece, including thousands of tiny rounded slashes. The piece is then taken out of the machine, the off-cuts are removed, and it is thoroughly cleaned. The stockings are then assembled with one seam up the back and reinforcement around the edges.
The end result is a sheer, lightweight, and durable latex fishnet stocking that can be worn on its own, or shined up and paired any latex outfit.” Check out this video from Ego Assassin on how easy it is to put on the stockings: Pretty cool, right?
The stocking are actually leg sleeves witch is a really good thing, as your tiny toes won’t get stuck in the stockings mesh and is simply much more comfortable to wear. I also believe they would also look fantastic on top of regular pair of latex stockings. I’m sure that we have just scratched the surface of what is possible with laser cut latex, and we can expect much more on this front in the years to come!”
By 3xl
Kink Engineering’s interview on CIUT radio in Toronto from Friday Nov 18th 2011
I could not be more excited to post this particular picture…
About 12 or 13 years ago Alexander Horn (pictured above - the one not wearing the hood) did a LOVELY set of fashion/fetish photos involving a vacbed on his website. That was the very first exposure I had to the concept of the vacbed, and it hit a switch in my head that has (obviously) remained on and in overdrive ever since.
So… in a way, Alexander contributed to the spark that formed Kink Engineering.
It was a particular honour a few weeks ago to have him come to me for some hoods for an event he was planning to attend in a few months, and to find out that a hero of mine in the latex scene actually noticed the design work that I had been doing.
A productivity guru that I follow recently gave advice about writing along the lines of “Decide who it is you want to delight” - and I have kept that in mind in my design work. I designed as if I had my heros in the field looking over my shoulder (or following my blog) and over time the result has been those people actually taking note, and in some cases becoming co-operative partners in projects, and friends. (See recent madness at House of Gord for example)
So… that’s some great advice. In whatever you do that makes you feel most whole, think of who you would most like to delight. Then work really really hard at that task. You may never catch the attention of that person you wanted to impress… but you’ll certainly impress a LOT of other people along the way.
~Matt.
Part 3: Our new Kink Engineering Micro-breathe Enclosure Hood : Huge thanks to Alexander Horn of www.l-a-tex.com for the photos! (Pictured next to the model)
Preview: laser cut latex chain necklaces! Online sept 28th at www.laserlatex.com
Libidex has expanded their mens line (as of 10 days from now) to include all sorts of new goodies! You’ll know you’re getting great stuff with Libidex… everything we’ve touched of theirs has been 100% first class stuff.
YAY! Finally a post on this blog that’s good news about a company that makes their own clothing designs (AND DOES IT REALLY REALLY WELL!!) - Maybe we should do this more often.
Good news from Ego Assassin coming soon actually…
The first company to knock off this libidex line will get the full brunt of our knockoff knockdown scorn! (Fair warning, we’ll totally word-murder the first copycat of this stuff! WORD-MURDER!!!!) That’s a lot of design investment by Libidex. So Knockoff-Knockdown latex police army… let us know if you see it getting ripped off and we’ll get all angry in their faces in a very public way. ;)
This is exactly the sort of awesome effort that we hope will continue in spite of the constant drain on the industry by theft of design/photos/customers and hijacking of quality standards.
Nicely done Libidex!