Because We Can blogs

Meet us at the Maker Faire 2012!

Jeffrey McGrew — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:31:52 +0000

We're excited and proud to once again be included in this year's Maker Faire!

It's so great to have participated every year. This year is talk-a-riffic for us! First you'll find us on Saturday, at 2:30 PM on the Make: Demo Stage giving a repeat from last year: The Secrets of Secret Doors.

Later on Saturday, on the Innovation Stage at 4:00 PM we're on a panel with Jon & Kyrsten and other co-creators of the Serpent Twins. We'll be talking and showing off all about how we made them. We're really excited that the Serpent Twins project we helped with will be at the Faire! You'll probably see us helping unload them and taking a shift of babysitting them during the day.

Then on Sunday, again at 4:00 PM on the Innovation Stage we'll be giving a special 'Ask a Master Maker' panel with a nice selection of experienced Makers to answer your every question! Ask us about projects, going pro, how we did something, or anything else you can imagine!

Looking forward to seeing you at the Faire!

Drawing Storage Table

Jillian Northrup — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:07:23 +0000

This is a great piece that we designed for a construction company that deals with numerous large drawings.
And we just posted the design of their new office here.

The counter height allows it to be a nice large standing meeting table while reviewing the large drawings, and with the accessibility to pull out another drawing for reference if needed.

The labels on the front are a dry erase material so the naming can be changed quickly and easily.

We designed it in two halves so it could be more easily shipped, and more importantly, fit through the door!

Which allowed us to make some fun joinery details...

It is a great casual meeting table, and a great center piece to the space!

Diner Wall

Jillian Northrup — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:00:41 +0000

We finally got photos of this project from late last year! We had helped ClifBar out with an internal wall they were building to showcase and promote the philanthropy projects their employees could help out with as part of a company program.

They had a cool idea to show off the different projects available as "menu items", so the diner wall concept was born.

We helped with designing the layout of the wall, sourcing the nessesary items and fabricating the specialty objects.... like these 'ticket takers' made out of old bike wheels!

And this 1950's counter! complete with diner accessories!

And finally, of course, a cool diner sign.

The wall is a well used hit!

New postcards

Jillian Northrup — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:31:45 +0000

Our new postcards from 4x6 showed up recently. And they look great!

Each one showcases a different project that we completed last year, and covers a range of commercial and residential projects and well as a good range of styles.

This is from a residential office project.
A swiveling desk design for a muti functional room. Other elements have since been built:

Next, a commercial project for Anno Domini, a San Jose Art Gallery.
Giant folding, rolling kiosks to expand their usable space:

Then, another residential project of curving stairs and useful but still beautiful storage space in this
Library loft space:

And finally, and internal marketing project with our own in-house library project.

Then, of course you must check out the back!

Lots of new projects up on the website

Jeffrey McGrew — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:41:42 +0000

We've been busy! Too busy to get some of the great projects we've gotten done on our website. So we took a moment, and posted up a few past projects for you to see. Enjoy!

We love coming up with concepts for what companies could do with their offices. It a service we offer, where we're brought in to help brainstorm some big ideas as inspiration.

A few recent examples are helping out Joyent, a cloud software service provider:

We also helped come up with some fun ideas for local hometown heros, Pandora:

And a little longer ago we helped YouTube out with some ideas too:

Now some more tangible office interior elements! We did some signage and branding elements for video game company Envie Interactive. Love that glowing 'V'!

Speaking of games, we also did some early conceptual art & 3D models for their video game:

One area we've really expanded upon is in our architectural services, undertaking some larger buildings. Two examples from last year are the ideas we came up with for a commercial building in SOMA:

And some value-engineering focused redesign of a small live/work loft complex for Oakland:

Now back to work! ;-)

Secret Maker Superhero Armoire

Jillian Northrup — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:16:26 +0000

For those Makers that also want nice things, and have wonderful treasures to display, may we introduce... The Secret Maker Superhero Armoire Display Case!

Looks like a regular large glass fronted Armoire you say?
Well watch this...

The sides open to reveal not only access to labeled pull out cubbies, but also, le coup de grâce: hidden pegboard tool and utility belt storage.

Beautiful etched glass and front aluminum detailing by day....

Full on Maker storage by night!

With awesome little cubbies!

This armoire was made for the same room as the Swiveling desks we made a few months ago. More images of the room and all the pieces we've made for it can be seen on the project page.

Thanks for the Great open House!

Jillian Northrup — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:51:43 +0000

Thank you all who came to our open house last week and making it an awesome fun event filled with interesting people, robots and Roller Skates!

We'll do Roller Disco again whenever we have the floor space.
Here's our poster shot for next time!

Company mascot

Jillian Northrup — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:59:40 +0000

Our comapany mascot, marketing director and cat (we all wear many hats around here) needed a new bed. You know, to hold important meetings in and, well, nap.
So I whipped something up for him the other day.

He seems to enjoy it.
And it jazzes up the office a bit!

New Maker Faire Blue Ribbon website

Jeffrey McGrew — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:23:46 +0000

The good folks at Maker Faire just launched a new website devoted to the Blue Ribbon winners!

While the Faire started in 2006, in 2007 they got the great idea to hand out blue ribbons as awards to the best projects that year. Just like a state fair!

We won big in 2007 with our Artgolf project, getting five blue ribbons and entertaining an army of kids. We've also gotten ribbons in 2008 & 2009 for Artgolf revisions & other projects.

Last few years we've just given a talks, like the one we did last year on the secrets of secret doors, and talks aren't eligible for ribbons!

Frankly we're honored and humbled to be recognized by such a wonderful group of people. See you at the Faire this year!

March Open House

Jeffrey McGrew — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 06:30:02 +0000

March 2nd is First Fridays in Oakland (i.e. the 'Murmur) and we are joining in the fun!

We are opening our doors for Because We Can's quarterly open house.

We'll be starting early at 5PM and going until 8PM.

Come on by!

We currently have 2,000 square feet of open concrete floor behind our studio, so bring your roller skates! Really no fooling.

Come meet and greet the designers of Because We Can, Jillian & Jeffrey, as we show off some of our recent projects, including a San Francisco bar design, a San Diego office design, and some local residential work.

We'll have food, homebrewed beer, we've got some new toys to play with, and we've cleaned up the place. Maybe the BWC band will even play!

Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words. You have been warned!

Friday, March 2st

5PM - 8PM

2500 Kirkham St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 922-8846

Click here for the Google Map.