David Balan
All work

In progress, Cornerstone Pilates

A studio wants to mark its clients' milestones with something they'll actually keep.

Cornerstone Pilates, the studio I helped my wife found, wants to give clients something at 10 classes, 50, 100 and on up. Not a certificate. Something small enough to live on a key ring. This page is the project as it stands, not a finished case study.

Where it is on 19 October 2026: the brainstorms are done, the concepts are rendered, and nothing is printed. I'm publishing it unfinished on purpose. Most work looks like this for a long time before it looks like a case study.

The 30-second version

The question

What do clients already carry or use every day that could hold a quick reminder of their work at the studio, without becoming one more thing to keep?

Where it stands

One first concept, a spine, set aside. Four directions rendered: a bottle for the key ring, a stack for the desk, a plaque for the wall, a chain for the pocket.

What's next

Print a test plate of everything, put the pieces in hands at the studio, and see which ones people keep.

My role
Design. I describe each piece and Claude renders it, then I react and describe the next round.
Worked with
My wife, who runs the studio, and the studio manager
Tools
Claude, for the renders. The 3D printer is next.
Context
Cornerstone Pilates, Jersey City. Ongoing, as of October 2026
Render: two milestone bottles and a tiny green reformer on a key ring with two keys, on a wooden table
Where the current direction lives: on the keys. A render, not a photograph. Nothing on this page has been printed yet.
1

The problem

Someone who comes to class twice a week passes 100 classes in a year. The studio wanted a way to mark that, and a reason to look forward to the next number.

We're exploring trinkets: small things to give away when a client reaches a milestone. The hard part isn't making them. It's making something a person is glad to have a year later.

The question

What do clients already carry or use every day that could be a quick reminder of their work here, without adding burden or clutter to their lives?

2

What I noticed

There were no sketches. There were conversations: my wife, the studio manager and me, talking through what clients carry, what sits on their desks, what they'd put on a wall.

The question above came out of those talks, and it changed the project more than any render did. The first concept was already drawn before we had it.

How the renders were made

Every image on this page was made in Claude from my descriptions. I'd describe a piece, look at what came back, and describe the next version. The renders are fast enough to throw away, which is the point.

3

The first concept: a spine

A tag with the studio mark, and a vertebra for each milestone that clicks into the one before it. Ten classes to 500, cream to deep green. It made sense for Pilates, and it looked good in a render.

It was also something to have, not something to use. It only gets longer, and it doesn't do anything on a key ring except hang there.

Set aside, not thrown out

The colour ramp from cream to green and the idea that the pieces connect both carried into everything that came after.

  • Render: two spine concepts, a hexagonal tag and a cross-shaped tag, each with eight interlocking vertebrae numbered 10 to 500, shading from cream to deep green
    Two tags, the same spine.
  • Render: the hexagonal tag with the CP mark and its spine of numbered puzzle-piece vertebrae
    The hexagon, up close.
  • Render: three tag shapes, two rectangles and an L, each with the first two vertebrae, 10 and 25, attached
    Tag studies.
  • Render: three smooth-edged spines with rounded segments numbered 10 to 500
    Softer spines.
  • Render: two chains of small linked squares hanging from square tags, and a bar with eight numbered pendants hanging from it
    Chains and a bar, still one object that grows.
  • Render: three bottle shapes in sage green, a tall bottle, a squat jar with an arched handle, and a tapered bottle, each with the CP mark and a ribbed base
    The first bottles. The direction turned here.
4

Where it is now: four directions

Once we had the question, one object that grows turned into a few small objects that live where people already look.

  • A bottle for the key ring. One per milestone, the mark on the front and the number on the back, cream at 10 classes to deep green at 400. The 500 is a tiny reformer.
  • A stack for the desk. A ribbed ring per milestone, threaded onto a core under a capped lid, so the colours climb as the count does. And a bar with numbered collars that slide on.
  • A plaque for the wall. The mark and the studio name, with a numeral tile that swaps out as the count goes up.
  • A chain for the pocket. Hinged links, one per milestone, that fold up.

Which of these gets printed first isn't decided. That's what the test plate is for.

Honest scope

Renders, not photos. Sizes, fit, and how a bottle holds up to a year on a key ring are unknowns until the first prints come off the plate.

  • Render: seven small bottle keychains in a row, cream to deep green, each with the CP mark and a ribbed base, and a tiny dark green reformer in front
    The bottles: seven of them and the reformer.
  • Render: the seven bottles from behind, numbered 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 300 and 400
    The bottles: the numbers, on the back.
  • Render: the 100-class bottle from the front with the CP mark and from the back with the number 100
    The bottles: front and back.
  • Render: a tiny dark green reformer with a key ring loop, the CP mark on the carriage
    500 classes: the reformer.
  • Render: a stacked cylinder of ribbed rings from cream to green under a dark green cap, next to the same stack pulled apart to show each ring
    The desk stack, assembled and apart.
  • Render: the dark green cap and eight ribbed rings laid out flat, each with a keyed hole in the centre
    The desk stack: the rings, laid out.
  • Render: two dark green bars with the CP mark; one carries eight numbered collars from 10 to 500, the other three, with more collars loose beside it
    The bar and its collars.
  • Render: the stack standing beside the collar bar on a key ring, on a linen surface
    The stack and the bar, on a desk.
  • Render: a green hexagonal plaque with the CP mark, the words Cornerstone Pilates, and a cream tile reading 10 near the top
    The plaque.
  • Render: the plaque with a 100 tile in place and three loose tiles reading 25, 250 and 500
    The plaque: tiles swap as the count goes up.
  • Render: the plaque with a 100 tile hanging on a wall beside a plant
    The plaque, on a wall.
  • Render: a zigzag chain of eight hinged links, cream to deep green, each ribbed and marked with the CP mark
    The chain.
  • Render: two chain links up close, showing the hinge, the ribbed ends and the CP mark
    The chain: the hinge.
  • Render: the chain lying in a zigzag on a wooden desk between a notebook and a cup
    The chain, on a desk.
5

What changed

Our thinking. We went from designing something to asking why: how it could be something nice to have rather than just something to have.

The spine answered "what should it look like." The bottles, the stack and the plaque answer "where will it live." That's a different question, and it's the one that matters once the novelty wears off.

Still open

The milestones themselves. The renders carry 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 300, 400 and 500. The final list gets settled with the studio before anything is printed in numbers.

6

What's next

Print the test plate: one of everything, in one colour. Put the pieces in hands at the studio and watch which ones people keep reaching for. Then pick the set, settle the milestones, and write what happened here.

This page gets updated as that happens, including the parts that don't work.

Render: a dark print bed laid out with one of every piece in a single pale colour: seven bottles, the reformer, the bar, the cap and rings, and eight collars
The test plate, as planned. One of everything, before any of it is real.

Let's talk.