About
Every one is somebody.
A Fahz is a vase made from the people in it. A few profile photographs become its outline, so the object and the people are the same line. No two are alike, because no two faces are.
About
A Fahz is a vase made from the people in it. A few profile photographs become its outline, so the object and the people are the same line. No two are alike, because no two faces are.
The idea
In 1915 the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin drew a vase that is also two faces looking at each other. You can see one or the other, never both at once.
A Fahz makes that picture solid, with real profiles. Turn it, and each person arrives in turn. Even numbers pair off and look at each other across the vase. Odd numbers don’t. Most people find the faces on their own, then hand it to someone else so they can find them too.
How one is made
1
Side profiles, straight from your phone. One face, or as many as six.
2
Seconds later your vase is turning on screen. Choose who looks at whom. Designing is free; you only pay if you order.
3
Your file goes straight to a print farm in the United States, in black or white PLA, a plant-derived plastic. Nothing is made ahead or warehoused.
4
About two weeks later it arrives, engraved with its own serial number, with a card that opens its digital twin.
The digital twin
The moment you order, your vase gets a page of its own online: its digital twin. The link is in your order email, so you can enjoy it while the real one is being printed.
Turn it in your hand and look at it from any angle, even from underneath. Show the faces, and each photo lines up with the profile it made. A small plan shows where everyone sits around the base, numbered like the notches on the bottom of the vase.
The card in the box has a QR code that opens the same page. So whoever gets the vase gets the twin too, and anyone they show it to can make one of their own.
Giving one
Gather the photos, design it yourself and send it straight to their door. It arrives with its card, and the twin comes with it.
Not sure whose faces belong on it? Give a Fahz code instead, and let them take the photos and design their own.
Your order email has a card you can print right away and a link to the twin. Even a last-minute gift has something to open.
Order by 10 December for delivery by Christmas. After that, the card and the twin still arrive the moment you order.
Your photos
To make your vase. That’s it. We don’t sell them, we don’t share them, and we don’t use them to train anything. We never will.
Your photos stay with your vase’s twin for 30 days after it’s delivered, so you can see them lined up with each face. Then we delete them, and the faces on the twin turn into soft gray shapes. If you’d rather keep the photos, there’s a Keep my photos link on the twin, and you can change your mind any time.
We do keep the vase itself, the 3D model, so you can order it again without starting over. Want everything gone sooner? Write to us and we’ll delete it.
What we promise
Every Fahz is generated from its own photographs. Its serial number is engraved on the base, in an edition of one.
Nothing is made until you order it, and nothing is made on the chance that somebody might want it.
A soft cloth and warm, soapy water is all it needs. Keep it out of the dishwasher, very hot water and hot cars.
If it arrives damaged, write to hello@fahzface.com and we’ll print you a new one.
Your Fahz is printed in PLA, a plant-based plastic. It's sturdy, but it doesn't like heat or harsh chemicals. To clean it, wipe it with a soft cloth, warm water and a drop of dish soap. Skip solvent cleaners (acetone, nail polish remover, strong spray cleaners), very hot water and the dishwasher, and don't leave it anywhere that gets really hot, like a car in the sun. Treat it like a nice wooden bowl and it will be around for a long time.
About Nicholas Desbiens
Nicholas Desbiens is an architect and computational designer in Brooklyn, New York. For more than twenty years he has worked where design, code and fabrication meet, writing the tools that take his ideas from the screen to something that can actually be made.
Architecture and design. Drawing and building. Thinking and making. Figure and ground. One and many. Systems and stories. Human and machine. These are the conversations he never tires of, and you’re welcome to start one. Write to him.
nicholas@des-des-res.com@desdesres on Instagramdes-des-res.comRead Lot Size OneThe full story, in the press room