Houston Buildings Coasters - Design Tech Project

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For my coaster design project, I made coasters of 6 famous buildings in Houston (such as the Astrodome) in a skyline view with warped text below that says Houston out of maple wood. I made four coasters with the difference between them being the font and warp of the text at the bottom of the coaster. 

To make my coaster I used the pen tool on Adobe Illustrator to outline famous buildings in Houston and used the grid tool to have the buildings look like they have windows. To get the warped effect on the text below the buildings, I used the envelope distort feature on Adobe Illustrator. After finishing the coaster design in Adobe Illustrator, I used the laser cutter to cut out my four coasters. I then sanded all sides of the coasters and applied finishing oil to them. I waited for about 5 minutes then burnished them and repeated the process. 

The part of my coasters I like the most are the sanded edges. While it was difficult and took a lot of time to sand the edges of my coaster, it was very rewarding and the coasters looked so much better than it did when they were left burned by the laser cutter. The most challenging thing about my coaster design was using the pen tool to make buildings as I had to be extremely precise for the building to look like the real thing.

The only thing I would change about my coasters is the size. I made the coasters 3in wide and long which was way too small and they can't hold many big glasses which is an issue as those are the most common things I put on coasters.

My plan for my coasters now that they are complete is to place them in my living room so my whole family can use them.



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