Dr. Saar Drimer makes beautiful printed circuit boards. His London-based company, Boldport, specializes in custom PCB designs that are as pretty as they are practical. So pretty, in fact, that photographer Mitch Feinberg commissioned a series of circuit boards from Boldport that were used in a 6-page section of this month’s U.S. edition of Marie Claire magazine.
The published photos of the boards combine Drimer’s intricate, stylized PCB designs with luxury jewelry from Tiffany, Chopard, Cartier, Yurman, and Harry Winston. The photos are published with permission on the Boldport blog.
Included here are photos of the boards from Drimer, unadorned with jewelry. To me, the boards are works of art in their own right. They also show the power of Boldport’s own custom Linux-based PCB design tool PCBmodE, which is capable of creating unique board designs that break away from the rigid design constraints of conventional circuit layout design tools.
Haute Circuits https://t.co/eevILU5Pe6 pic.twitter.com/UVOufc664f
— Boldport (@boldport) November 25, 2015
Each of the page-sized boards designed for this feature were inspired by the jewelry intended to be paired with them. In each case, Drimer knew exactly where each piece of jewelry would fit, and he accommodated the layout to highlight them. In the Harry Winston piece, for example, he literally highlighted it by designing in small SMD lights between the loops powered by a micro USB port included on the board. Similarly, this Chopard piece aligns so perfectly with Drimer’s solder pads that the jewelry could be easily mistaken for some beautifully alien PCB component.
While I probably won’t be rushing out to pick up this month’s Marie Claire just for these photos, I think it’s great that design-minded engineers like Drimer are being sought out for their beautiful work (he’s for hire, by the way). I also have to tip my hat to Drimer and Boldport for taking on such an unusual design challenge as a chance to push the boundaries of the art of PCB design. Perhaps the next time you sit down to design a circuit you’ll hesitate before hitting that auto-route button and explore the path less traveled.
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