Design with Minimal Intervention: Drawing with Light and Cracks

Industrial design focuses on minimizing fabrication variability, aiming for identical products, while craft practice often results in unpredictable outcomes. We rely on crackle, an explicit pottery phenomenon that renders a pattern of cracks in ceramic glazing, to produce craft-unique outcomes in a moderately controlled design process. With the help of a dedicated CAD tool and a laser machine, we embed artificial decorations in a crackle pattern. By pre-processing the clay and post-processing the glaze, we demonstrate a technique to partially control the typical size of cracks in a given area, thus embedding visual forms in the glaze.