Having received a request for a portfolio case I have been working on the design and have started making the first prototype. I am using black vegetable tanned bridal shoulder along with black linen thread. The case is single gusseted and is closed with a lockable solid brass briefcase latch. The plan is to use goat leather for the lining. There are a lot of design considerations that need to be decided upon and hopefully the result will be a design that works well and looks good. The radii of the bottom edges, the incorporation of the Golden Ratio, the thickness of the thread, the length and density of the stitches, are all design decisions that need to be made. So designing, for me, is a process of building layers of features and functions until all of the details become lost to the end user who then only sees something that works well and looks good. The details disappear and all you see is something pleasing to the eye, pleasant to handle and something that does what it needs to do well.
The photographs below show some of the finer details of the making process. The piece has been cut and the preparation, stitch preparation and closure preparation are depicted in the photographs and video below.
The final version will be made with brown Russia leather (replica) with red goat suede lining and non-contrasting brown Lin Cable thread as per the customer’s requirements. Almost all of the materials are in and we are almost ready to go.
