We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Zachary Milaskey about their original and creative Eyewear design work. Zachary Milaskey is an award-winning fashion designer, that makes our world a better place with their original eyewear works.
Zachary Milaskey ("ZM") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Vinylize Toney Eyewear. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
ZM : The principle was limitations. It was an exercise in how to make a complex object without losing the integrity of the original material.
ZM : I wanted the original material to be recognizable in the end product. The product also had to fulfill its role as durable, comfortable and stylish eyewear.
ZM : I would like this design to be a statement of awareness to limitations.
ZM : This particular concept did not take more than a few months to design. Developing methods to mass produce a quality product took years.
ZM : I decided to persue an inspiration. I could not find suitable material to realize my eyewear designs until I found my fathers record collection in the garage.
ZM : We are currently producing our work ourselves along with 30 other designs.
ZM : The deisgn stemmed out of limitations. We wanted to work with vinyl records as they had become quite abundant. The final product melded market and production requirements.
ZM : Classical acetate eyewear design influenced the look, feel and quality. Cari Zalloni was one of the majors for me.
ZM : The size targets men. The concept targets people who think outside the box. The quality targets people who recognize craftmanship. The price targets those who support a cause.
ZM : This is a concept that respects the integrity of the original material. A new manufacturing process has been developed to produce it.
ZM : Vinylize is the name of the concept. Recycling vinyl into eyewear. Vinyl + eyes = Vinyleyes. But at the same time it is also a play on the suffix IZE. -ize, is added to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verbs with the general senses “to render, make”. As in standardize, plasticize, neutralize, etc. The name Toney is the actual name of the model and comes from one of the records used to make it.
ZM : Hand drawing, autocad, solid works, 3d printing.
ZM : The most unique aspect is creating a luxury item from upcycled materials.
ZM : We worked with record pressing plants to understand the nature of vinyl. We worked with adhesive specialists to develop superior adhesion. We worked with opticians to make it compatible with corrective lenses
ZM : Technology has 3 roles in this design. Once in the production of the raw material, secondly in the design and thirdly in the machines that are used to make it. The raw material production uses a proprietary technology to fuse the vinyl to the acetate. The design uses the most advanced CAD programs to maximize comfort and durability. The designs are then milled out of the raw material using state of the art cncs.
ZM : We began to suspect that our product appealed more towards an older male audience. We conducted market research on both b2b and b2c level to confirm this.
ZM : We faced production problems. The first pieces had lamination issues and it took much research to correct it.
ZM : Our company is a small one which makes exceptional products. This is a great way to gain exposure since our marketing budget is very small.
ZM : We learned that desig esthetics, production efficiency and market expectations must be met in order for success to ensue.
