blog post 11 - Dimensional Innovations

Dimensional Innovations:

Dimensional Innovation is a business that "liberates people from mediocre experiences". They are one of the few places in Kansas City that I have seen that fosters a large design office that fosters what I would call a creative firm space. They have a hired design staff of around 200 graphic designers, industrial designers, engineers, geeks, freaks, and fabricators. They proudly state that they are an Idea Factory with an actual factory! They have almost of all their fabrication and design teams in-house so they don't have to outsource for much at all! I find this model of business very interesting. I wonder how they do that with keeping specialized equipment in house.  Often business outsources because they do not want to buy the highly specialized equipment required. Good for DI! I has to be awesome as a designer to take a concept and then be able to have the manufacturing of it happen right next to you for you watch and have to have input. I think this model would lead to better products and services because there would be workflow among the process. We got to see a clients project underway, the building of new interior elements for AMC fork and screen. Dimensional Innovations was doing everything from lighting to signage to even seating. DI works for many different clients, commercial interiors, assisting artists in building installations, designing new medical equipment, to developing a businesses brand and identity. The materials they are working with include vinyl, plastic, metals, and wood. For processes they used cnc cutting, laser, standard woodworking equipment, welding, and a variety of manual and digital metal bending equipment. They created the AMC signage using a CNC Automated Channel Letter Signs Bending Machine by Ez Bender. The machines function is to quickly fabricate channel letters. They machine uses hydraulic dies and cutters for notching, making flanges, bending and cutting. They said It can work Aluminum, Stainless Steel and Galvanized Steel, but that they almost always use aluminum because it can create a easier relief flange that holds the plastic in the best letter frame. The software they used to program the machine seemed pretty easy as it used a graphic interface where you drew the shape you wanted to bend. The part of Dimensional Innovations was their innovations lab! They has a KU grad working there which was cool to see. He gave us a tour of the projects he was working on. They were designing some very unique products, like a Kickstarter project for a purse dongle that reads text messages. They were also creating unique fashion clothing that glowed with LED light when noise in the room increased. I really enjoyed this tour and could see myself working here in the future.