A couple of years back I noticed a small jewelry booth at the ICFF.  The pieces had interesting patterns and a sleek finish -- organic and modern at the same time. Recently, I was again drawn to their booth at the Renegade Craft Fair, where I explored further (and finally bought something!). Turns out that the jewelry is designed by a computer program devised by MIT graduates Jesse Louis Rosenberg and and Jessica Rosenkrantz, the founders of Nervous System. They apply mathematical algorithms derived from nature to create the patterns, each of which is unique, therefore no two pieces of jewelry are identical. For example, they might use a mathematical model of how a particular crystal evolves to generate their algorithm.  The jewelry is unusual and beautiful, and at the same time I  appreciate how they got there and their practical application of biomimicry.

For those of you interested in advanced math and making things, they have also released interactive applets so you can craft your own personalized products, and their source code is publicly available through Creative Commons.

Many of the pieces are produced using rapid prototyping, which is one of my current obsessions -- think 3-d printers. Yes, they exist and soon we will all have one on our desktop. Curious? take  a look at this recent article from The Economist entitled "Print Me a Stradivarius".

The future of design is limitless...