GOALS:

We’re developing a 10-14 week internship program for two teams of 2-3 Design Students that will:

• Allow the student group to identify, plan, design, and prototype a project with help from LD staff

• Utilize the group bandwidth for portfolio-building projects as determined by LD staff including:

- Misc admin and housekeeping items

- ID Projects

- GD Projects

- Market & User Research

- Digital Modeling

- Any other tasks as determined by management

IMPORTANT DATES:

• Announcement: January 25th

• Information Session at LD: January 31st

• Applications Accepted From: Jan 31st – Feb 24th

• First round Interviews: February 25th

• Follow-up interviews: Ongoing and as needed

• Final Selection: March 22nd

POTENTIAL APPLICANTS:

• Potential applicants should be motivated, self-starters who have completed and mastered multiple design courses that are looking for an internship that requires heavy input in exchange for heavy output and mentoring.

• To apply, submit the following to LD via Josh Horne – josh@lautdesign.com o Resume & portfolio samples, including:

- Relevant course work and corresponding portfolio content

- Past project samples related to ID, GD, or Prototyping

- Two (2) references Laut Design can contact; one (1) academic, one (1) other

- Other group member’s name(s)

- Proposed project outline, including:

- A brief summary of the project and how Laut Design can be a resource on completion of the project (not simply “LD has the machinery and software, etc”)

- Proposed timeline to completion, group member responsibilities, and set deliverables for project



Creator of industry-changing titles like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow 6, Ghost Recon, and Splinter Cell, the team over at Red Storm made a visit to our studio this week to talk design and fabrication.

Be sure to check www.redstorm.com and www.ubisoft.com for updates on their upcoming release Splinter Cell: Blacklist

The folks over at ICSID have released a great video explaining it.

One Exchange Place in Downtown Raleigh

Laut Design Selected to Design New Downtown Raleigh Restaurant Concept

Our team has been contracted to design a new restaurant concept at One Exchange Place in our very own Raleigh, NC. The new venture will replace The Mint restaurant which closed down in early 2012.

Our ID and Graphic teams will both be heavily involved on this project, which will utilize a blended effort of interior design, lighting, branding, and print.

While we can’t tell you much about the new concept, we’ll be posting photos of the progress as work is completed.

This weekend, our founder and President Michael Laut will mentor Triangle Startup weekend, a 54-hour non-stop marathon weekend of idea pitches, presentations, and advice sessions on what it takes to get a successful business idea off the ground.

Check out more details here, or meet the group on NC State’s Centennial Campus, Engineering Building I and II.

Prototyping a sailboat keel

When one of our customers, working with a large sailboat manufacturer, came to us and asked for a scale prototype of their new keel design, we gladly obliged.  We started with the 3D CAD data of the part, calculated precise toolpaths for our CNC mill, and delivered a perfect scale replica of the new keel.

The machining setup and completed part can be seen here before removal from the waste material.

Working with surfaces that need to replicate real-world scale results can be a tricky business. To verify the accuracy of the surfaces, we usually run a second “cross-path” over the part which, although it appears to be doing nothing, is removing a microscopic layer of variation from the cutter we used.

It also produces a lot of extra dust and gives the shop a nice coating.  We’re still waiting for Dyson to make a shop vacuum.

Start Every Day Inspired.

We like to start the day inspired and thought you might like to also. A while back, we started sending out what we like to call the “Daily Dose of Cool”.  It’s a small daily e-mail made up of images gleaned from the design research we’re always doing here.

It’s meant to get the mental gears turning and creativity at the forefront of every day. It usually contains imagery like:

• Art
• Product Design
• Automotive
• Fashion
• Photography
• Places
• People
• Scenery
• Anything else awesome

Images are either found by our staff, or sent in from other Daily Dose recipients.  We’d love to see what inspires you every day.

If you’d like to be added to our list, please send us an email or give us a call.

Microscopic LEDs from a recent customer meeting

Don’t gasp, you might inhale one.

In this photo, taken with a cell phone through a microscope lens, are nano LEDs we were introduced to during a recent meeting. Their weight is so minimal, it’s not enough to counteract the static forces that hold them in their plastic container.

The debris you see in the viewport is not visible to the human eye at all, and the LEDs appear as grains of sand in their container. A misdirected sneeze would literally send them flying. We decided to hold off on this project until after pollen season.