white house

DS:White House

One day, we were asked to produce a special protocol gift for the President of the United States. The promotional company that serviced the White House said that the “First Lady” had seen some crystal laser designs and believed they would make an excellent gift for visiting dignitaries.

The image they wanted was of the White House and it had to be of a quality and size worthy of our President to bestow on visitors from foreign countries.

Since this was extra extra important (but really aren’t they all) – we took our time and spent over 20 hours reviewing every possible photograph and image we could find on the White House. In the process learned a lot about the history and changes made to the architecture over the different administrations (like the front stairs, the car port, even the roof). In the end, we settled on focusing the the primary and most distinguishable elements of the White House with the hopes that these features wouldn’t change anytime soon.

and so we built the White House

In a matter of speaking we did and when it was done we realized that we had a lot more detail than was needed. Now don’t get us wrong, detail is a good thing and one of the principal aspects of every design we do. However, the laser doesn’t like too much detail and the results can produce an unusually ugly piece which can take a long time to produce (not a good thing). We say ugly because all laser designs in crystal deal with a certain level of transparency and because of that, too much detail creates clusters of dots that turn into visual blobs for the viewer blocking other details. Regardless, the issue can become quite frustrating at times and we needed to be revisit the approach. In the end, we decided to remove a number of elements that “clouded” the image while preserving some of the smaller details that round out the piece.

Detail View of White House

Above is a collection of close ups showing the final design in crystal. The detail is allowed to show itself without overwhelming the total image, while subtle elements such as the hanging lantern in the car port or the sconces on the lower part of the front steps help add to its character. [ED: Time Capsule Note - the above was done using a red laser technique which produces larger point sizes than the more advanced green lasers mostly employed today.]

After the White House staff approved the final design, it was presented to the President. As for the final approval from the Commander in Chief himself, we were told that “the President didn’t stand a chance after the First Lady saw it first” – of course, that’s the story we got and we’re pretty sure the actual comments were probably filtered for National Security sake.

Needless to say, you can not buy this design anywhere – this size, design and even some of the subtle elements have been reserved by us for the United States Government. After all, how special would a diplomat feel if they were to walk out of the White House and bump into a vendor selling the SAME crystal regardless of the signature on it – I mean wars have been started for less!

The Obvious Plug

We hope you enjoyed the little story behind our design of the White House; and remember if the President can trust us to get the job done – you can too!