A treat for the tongue and the eye
With this second article about Adrien, I guess I'm on a mission to write his biography. More seriously, we share a passion for exploring new activities and building things. His last exploration was to start Rica with two friends and get on a mission to create high-end chocolate. They practice a lost art called "bean to bar"; meaning that they work from the cacao bean. Few chocolate makers or brands do that, most buy chocolate and transform it. But that's losing the benefit and beauty of selecting the beans, controlling the torrefaction and making well... the best chocolate I've personally ever tasted. Let's see if I can honor that by building a nice display for the tablets.
The display is made out of ash and the dark parts are walnut. These walnut inserts, beside offering a pleasing visual contrast and a reminder of the color of chocolate, are here to prevent the tablet from sliding out. The back of the display is slightly higher than the front, giving the object a slender look and offering better access to the tablets behind. Finally a chamfer runs all around to smoothen the touch. It can hold up to 5 tablets but it can also be made bigger if needed. The flat part in front is not only decorative, the idea is to have a tiny plate with samples to taste.
This project was quite simple but I had a lot of fun doing it. I realize that small items are really a lot of fun. I love to quickly and cheaply try ideas, iterate over the design and build multiple prototypes until I'm satisfied with what I have in hands. It's not always as easy to do when making bigger pieces or custom furniture. And on that note I will leave you with some pictures of the building process:
