I was thrilled when Brenn commissioned something I hadn’t done before: acrylic labels for a Nintendo Wavebird controller.  I’m a huge fan of the Super Smash Bros. series of games and have three well-worn Wavebirds of my own, but in this case I would be making a name label for Alex, or “Killer Noodle 2.”

A template cut from cardstock helped determine shape issues.

Aesthetics came about a little by accident: Brenn suggested a car racing theme, but the checkerboard flag pattern I made ended up looking far more like a zipper than a flag. We decided to couple the zipper design with a Gamecube logo approximation font called Gamecuben.

The shape took a few tries to get right. That was mostly because I was too lazy to do precise measurements, but I did use some laser-cut cardstock to get a feel how the final acrylic piece would fit between the D-pad and the thumb buttons. Compared to the cardstock prototype, which wrapped down around the Start/Pause button, I cropped the final acrylic piece a little farther up so I could avoid obsessing over following the controller’s curved shapes as much as possible. It helped balance out the length of the username printed front-and-center, anyway!

Engraving through transfer tape didn’t work so well.

I used some 1/16″ Silver/Black foiled acrylic with an adhesive layer on the back. This made adhering the final pieces a snap. A long time ago, I ran across a conversation on a laser engraving forum suggesting that, with the right power settings, one could laser engrave certain 2-ply acrylics through the transfer tape, resulting in a clean engraving with no blow back thanks to the tape. Well, I tested that with this project and while I didn’t experiment with every power and speed setting available, I did give it a handful of shots. The results were almost universally sticky and inconsistent. A pity!

A matching tag for the Wavebird’s receiver.

A simple rounded rectangle with an LED window was made to fit on the Wavebird’s receiver unit. It used the same stroke effect and type as the main controller piece, so it was also quick and easy!

This was a fun project, partly because of my fondness for the hardware involved, and partly because collaborating with Brenn came easily, the design snapped together without much trouble and required few prototypes, and the final acrylic really stands out on the controller. Frankly, it might stand out too much, but I’m fond of it anyway!

The completed set: one Wavebird game pad and one receiver!