In a brilliant combination of old craftsamnship and new technology, Spencer shows off some leather cufflinks that have embedded EL panels. Spencer had a friend with a laser cutter that was going fairly unused. He really wanted to play with cutting leather on it, so this project was born.
He started by drawing up the iconic Space Invaders pixel art in illustrator. Then, they started burning leather with a laser. Apparently it took a bit of trial and error to keep the laser from completely burning away the little borders between the pixels. He then made an EL panel sandwich between two layers of leather. The laser cut one facing outward and a nice soft layer against your skin.
Spencer has been experimenting with some interesting combinations of video game imagery and leather for a while now on his Etsy shop, but this appears to be his first foray into adding electronics into the mix. I would easily call this a success. If you’d like to see more of the work, including some really beautiful laser etched leather that doesn’t include elctronics, you can find tons of pictures on his facebook page.
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