Plymouth, Michigan · Film · Photo · Design · Fabrication

Isaac Miller makes things.

Films, photographs, brands and physical objects. I run Yazaki North America's internal Makerspace, where associates learn new software like AI alongside tools like lasers and 3D printers to build their own ideas.

See the work Get in touch

Anvil and chain in a blacksmith's shop, from a film for Neely Ironwork — Film · Neely Ironwork

Composite of a dancer and a bronze angel statue joined by lightning — Photo · Composite

Brand · Neely Ironwork

Four coasters printed with gold turntables on blue tile — Make · Turntable coasters

Drone view of Shafer Tower at Ball State University — Photo · Part 107 drone

Hand measuring a part with digital calipers, from the Yazaki Makerspace film — Film · Yazaki Makerspace

143films & edits

125photo shoots & sets

29brand & design projects

15maker projects

5training programs

Counted from the Finished Work archive, October 2026.

Selected projects

Seven projects where the film, the photographs, the brand and the built object came from the same hands.

2024 – present

Yazaki Makerspace

Client: Yazaki North America, Canton MI
Role: R&D Coordinator, Engineering Communications
Work: Systems, classes, marketing, photography
With: Michael Boyd's team, who ran budget, safety and requests

A central place that breaks down the barriers to solving problems. We pulled print resources, electronics and a photo lab for employee and product photos together from around the building, then added 3D printing and lasers. It's open to every employee for work and personal projects.

Built most of the systems: the SharePoint site and its class booking, OneDrive, and each machine's console, software and accounts
Wrote the class content and marketing, taught almost half of all classes, and oriented new makers and instructors
Created the associate-instructor model, where makers grow into instructors and Supermakers
Built a self-serve headshot booth that 1,000+ people have used
Built the Makerspace identity: logo system, mascots, skill-area signage, maps and apparel
The clearest sign it works: the quality of maker projects keeps rising

Yazaki Makerspace04:17 CES 202300:41 University Engagement02:00 Inside the Makerspace ↓

2022 – 2024

Yazaki R&D Playground

Client: Yazaki North America, Canton MI
Role: R&D Coordinator
Work: Exhibits, events, space, identity, photography

Yazaki created the Playground in late 2022 to draw people back to the office after COVID, and my role was created to build and lead it. I made technology exhibits from Yazaki's own work, including connector cross-sections, VR experiences and robotics teardowns, and ran events like the AI Olympics. I also designed its identity, featured every intern, and photographed the demos.

Wrote "R&D Playground 2.0: Excite the Excitable", with a Proving Ground for intern projects and university clubs and a Main Stage for presentations, demos and MIT ILP broadcasts
Re-themed the space through the year to keep it fresh for returning employees: the World Cup, March Madness, Rubik's Cube and robotics demos, and a Spot teardown
Created a composite nameplate poster for each intern
Supported 40+ visits from OEMs, a bank, suppliers and Yazaki groups
Hosted a U of M Dearborn autonomous go-kart presentation and an EMDEP demo, plus 40+ riddles of the day and 25+ bake deliveries
Photographed 200+ moments, from Kids Day's Terrific Towers to the 2023 intern class
Its smart systems, tools and lighting helped launch the Makerspace in 2024

Playground intro02:08

June – July 2026

Maker Cup 2026

Client: Yazaki Makerspace
Work: Event identity, trophies and medals, signage, promo and race-day photography
With: The Makerspace interns I led, who organized the event

A build-and-race competition for battery-powered micro cars. Teams of two to four, each with at least one employee and one intern, built a car from a kit and raced it on a 32-foot drag strip and a 25° hill climb in a double-elimination bracket. The interns ran the event; I designed how it looked.

Designed the identity: the checkered M roundel, rainbow race graphics, the “Are you a racer?” recruiting flyer, start and finish-line signage and the bracket screen
Designed the 3D-printed trophies with team nameplates, and medals for Drag Strip, Hill Climb and People's Choice
Shot the concept-car promo photos and race day
The debrief set up 2027: one standard track released early, and workshops with a set topic each week

2021 – 2025

Neely Ironwork

Client: Paden Neely, blacksmith
Work: Logo, short film, documentary and product photography

A long-running collaboration with a blacksmith friend: the shop's identity in light and dark versions, a short film from inside the forge with a 30-second cut, and photo series of the shop build, a ring build and the finished pieces.

Blacksmith film00:54

2026

Paden & Erica's wedding

Client: Paden Neely and Erica
Work: Portraits, ceremony, family formals, reception and brunch
Delivered: 223 edited photos from 1,008 frames

A full wedding for the blacksmith behind Neely Ironwork, a client and friend since 2021: portraits on the waterfront and around town, the church ceremony, family formals, a lakeside reception and the brunch. It builds on the 40 to 50 weddings I second-shot in college.

2020 – 2021

Ball State University Foundation

Role: Digital Media Specialist
Work: Fundraising and donor films, campus photography
Reach: 120K+ views

Donor stories, scholarship thank-yous and an annual awards film, shot on my own gear while I finished a degree in media, promotion and management.

We Are Cardinals is my most-awarded film: a poem I wrote as a love letter to Ball State, performed by Edgar de Santiago and shot on the fly by a crew of three for One Ball State Day 2021. The Foundation asked for the poem to give to donors, and Edgar and I presented the film at UpLift Ball State in Florida in February 2022.

Also One Ball State Day 2021 countdown films, a We Fly welcome for new grads, a Student Networking Event promo, and pieces for Cardinal Callers, the Boys & Girls Club and Cardinal Econ: 19 Ball State films in all.

Gold CASE Award, student-produced video (2021)
Silver CASE Award, fundraising video (2022)
Ball State Student of the Year, Media, Promotion & Management (2021)

We Are Cardinals02:06 Awards Video10:06 Sammi Wesner01:23 Impact Video01:11 Thank You01:44 One Ball State Day00:45 We Fly: New Grads01:02

2025 – present

Calisthenics Academy

Work: Identity, event flyer, wood burning

A calisthenics training project in Plymouth, Michigan. I designed its seal and logo, carried the seal onto wood-burned parallette holders, and made the flyer for the 20x25 Calisthenics Challenge: 20 sets of 25 reps, 500 in all, with partners racing for the fastest time at Hines Park on September 13, 2025.

Inside the Makerspace

The classes, workshops and events we run, and the systems behind them. Built with the Makerspace team since 2024.

389makers

421orientations

584class records

22classes

89event reviews

103projects in the gallery

4,654sq ft, 6 skill areas

Classes & workshops

Every machine has a class, booked through the site I built on SharePoint and logged in the class record book. I developed the Photo Lab classes, the laser class, sublimation and Cricut, brought 3D printing Fundamentals, Intermediate and TinkerCAD online, and taught almost half of all classes. Classes I wrote are marked ★.

Bambu A1 Mini ★ Bambu P1S ★ Bambu H2C Specialty Filament TinkerCAD for 3D Printing ★ Onshape for 3D Printing Fusion 360 Laser: Falcon 2 Pro ★ Laser Advanced Product Photography ★ Headshot / Passport ★ Image Gen: Brand & Promotion ★ Image Gen: Restore & Remix ★ Sewing Embroidery Cricut ★ Sublimation & Heat Press ★ Large Format Printing Board Soldering Wire Soldering Electronic Testing Embedded Systems

Feb 2025Introduction to Lithophanes, taught by a community instructor
May 2025Introduction to 3D CAD with FreeCAD, run twice
Jul 2025Print-in-Place workshop, the best received, now a step toward Supermaker

The Supermaker system turns regulars into teachers. Michael Manor started as a maker, became an instructor, then finished the Supermaker prerequisites with the Print-in-Place workshop. In one month of fall 2024 I taught 13 classes and brought in 20 new makers.

Events

Four kinds of events: Workshops, Make & Tell, Community Projects and Make & Go. Make & Go is the one I'd run again tomorrow: fast and exciting, though hard to design. Make & Tell is next to change, focusing each one on one or two topics.

May 2024Soft launch
Jul 2024Ribbon cutting to open the Makerspace, hosted by our team
2025–26Make & Tell show-and-tells
Apr 2025Kids Day
May 2025SAE Micro-Electric Vehicle Competition, hosted at Yazaki. I set up the event's look
Jul 2025Intern events: Minion Monologues, Make Banners, Ford intern tour
Aug 2025Summer Vibes competition
Oct 2025Make & Go at WWEC: 3D-printed traveler's tools and custom T-shirts for 50–70 people, with Engineering and HR
Jul 2026Maker Cup: a build-and-race electric car competition organized by interns I led. I designed its look: logo, promo photos, trophy, medals and finish line

Clubs grew out of the Makerspace too: a jump rope club, a chess club and the Gardenspace. Plus tours for visiting groups and a FIRST robotics demo.

Systems I built

I built most of the Makerspace's systems. The rest of the team ran budget, safety and incoming requests.

SharePoint home base: built and rebuilt two or three times. It started bare-bones, with just class sign-ups and orientations, and grew into a page for each skill area with its instructors, the class booking site, and Report, Submit and Request buttons on the homepage
Machine consoles: each station's computer set up with its software and accounts, with files kept in OneDrive
Records: instructors and orienters log each orientation and class sign-off (398 in the record book) so we can track new makers, plus an equipment list of 61 entries. Project submissions are how we measure use
Equipment error reporting: a maker reports a problem from the homepage or a machine's QR code. Maintenance marks the ticket in progress while diagnosing, contacts the maker with questions, and updates the ticket when the fix is done. Every ticket feeds a maintenance page
Incident and near-miss reporting: a submit-only form, a staff-only list, and a Power Automate alert to staff
Project gallery and Project Recipes: makers submit projects; recipes document example builds, with the piece in the display case
Library: 74 guides, software pages and tutorials, and an instructor and Supermaker directory with card views per area
Maker Store: single items from bulk orders, ordered by QR, with proceeds to charity

In development

The Makerspace Hub: a web app to replace the SharePoint lists and Bookings. SharePoint is very limiting, and our corner of the company has room to experiment. A 43-table database with row-level security, magic-link sign-in, a page for every machine reached by QR tag, problem reports and service logs, classes, a library, a maker directory, the project gallery, recipes, materials, the store and events. It already holds 389 makers, 421 orientations, 584 class records and 103 projects.

Crowd in the atrium for the Makerspace ribbon cutting — Ribbon cutting, July 2024

Maker presenting a project at Make and Tell — Make & Tell

Workshop attendees around a table — Lithophane workshop

Green laser-cut acrylic business card box — Laser class: business card box

Students with micro electric vehicles — SAE Micro-Electric Vehicle Competition

Kids at work tables during Kids Day — Kids Day 2025

Group seated at long tables in the Makerspace — Print-in-Place workshop

Summer Vibes competition winners posing — Summer Vibes winners

Student robotics team in matching shirts at a Yazaki table — RoboTitans FIRST robotics demo

Students showing their competition robot — RoboTitans robot

Hands planting seed trays along a window ledge — Gardenspace planting, April 2025

Intern presenting in front of a projected slide — Minion Monologues, intern talks

Lunch crowd at long tables in the Makerspace — October EE Luncheon

Visiting group posed at the Makerspace entrance — Tour group, March 2025

Make & Go identity

Maker Mail banner with a mailbox — Maker Mail newsletter banner

Intern working on a banner — Make Banners, intern event

Makerspace team in blue polos at the entrance — Ribbon cutting team, July 2024

Black and white view of guests arriving in the hallway — Ribbon cutting day, July 2024

Three team members in teal polos at a camera setup — Makerspace team, 2024

Winners holding their prizes at the Makerspace entrance — Summer Vibes winners, August 2025

Visitor at a sewing machine in the stitch studio — Ford intern tour, 2025

Instructor walking a full room through CAD — Intro to 3D CAD workshop

Crowd around Makerspace tables in the WWEC atrium — Makerspace at WWEC 2025

Black and white photo of a maker at the banner printer — Make Banners, 2025

Black and white floor map of the Makerspace rooms — Makerspace map, black and white

The space

The six skill areas, from the May 2024 soft launch to an after-hours lighting shoot in March 2026.

Glass storefront entrance with the Makerspace sign — Front entrance

Row of 3D printers under green light — 3D Lab

Maker adjusting a 3D printer lit in red and teal — 3D Lab, at the printer

3D printers on a lit counter at night — 3D printing bench

Laser cutter glowing red in a dark room — Laser Lab

Close-up of a laser module under red light — Laser Lab, laser module

Man seated in a white studio with softboxes — Photo Lab, headshot studio

Maker photographing a circuit board in a light box — Photo Lab, product light box

Sewing and embroidery machines under purple light — Stitch studio

Maker sewing at a machine — Sewing in the stitch studio

Engineer at a test bench, black and white — Electronics bench

Print studio with a cutting table and vinyl rolls — Print Studio

Maker trimming a large print at a cutting table — Print Studio, trimming a print

Large-format printer and orange stools — Print Studio, large-format printer

“Opening early June” sign inside the glass wall of the new Makerspace — Soft launch, May 2024

AI & generative work

I make with Claude, Gemini and Photoshop's generative tools, and I'm building the Makerspace classes that teach associates to use them with control.

Remix 100 · 2:01 · sound on

Photo Lab · Style Reference Poster

One building, 100 styles

I took one photo of a glass office building with a wooden canopy and restyled it 100 ways in Gemini, from wireframes and silhouettes to holographic foil, with the camera angle locked so only the style changes. The tiles became a 36 × 54 in reference poster for the Photo Lab: 50 black-and-white styles, 50 color and a page of style variables. Remix 100 runs all of them in two minutes over an original soundtrack, built with Claude.

The trick: put “keep the exact same camera angle” before the style, or Gemini moves the camera

Restore & Remix promo loop · 0:59

Class promo · Q-AI-101

Restore & Remix, in a minute

A promo loop for the first class. A damaged print gets repaired and recolored, then a “style slot machine” spins medium, color and one variable until it lands on pen and ink, paint, vector and finally a 3D-printed miniature. Every frame is drawn in code, built with Claude.

The Q · AI Image Series

Three hands-on classes in development, built on a five-layer prompt framework: Subject · Setting · Structure · Style · Maker. The habit across all three: isolate to control. Dial in one layer at a time, then stack.

Q-AI-101

Restore & Remix

Edit existing images with surgical control: describe what to keep as precisely as what to change.

Digital repair: denoise and upscale
Physical repair: tears, creases and fading
Recolor black-and-white photos
Interior design remix
Exterior design remix
Background generator
Add and remove elements
Use styles: the reference image shortcut

Q-AI-102

Image Generation

Build prompts from scratch, one layer of the framework at a time.

Logo generation
Subject: the focal point
Setting: the world and the action
Style: genre and mood
Structure: the spatial foundation

Q-AI-103

Maker Generation

Prompt for files the machines can use: cut paths, engraving art and 3D models.

Cricut: clean cut paths
Sketch to vector logo pipeline
Laser-optimized black-and-white styles
3D generation with Meshy, plus the series capstone

Class demos

Practice images for Restore & Remix, each prompted to fix one thing and protect the rest, and a location photo taken to the laser.

Torn, faded wedding portrait beside the repaired version — 1.2 Physical repair: tear and fading

Black-and-white street scene beside a colorized version — 1.3 Recolor: a 1940s street

Faded family picnic photo beside a restored version — 1.1 Digital repair: a faded 1970s picnic

Plain break room beside a remixed mid-century version — 1.4 Interior remix: the break room

Bottle on a cluttered desk beside the same bottle in a velvet case — 1.6 Background generator

Couple on a park bench with a trash can, and without it — 1.7 Add and remove: the trash can

A photo of an engineer at a bench beside three black-and-white restyles — One Electronics photo, three laser-ready styles

Claude

My build partner for tools and systems: teaching games like Restyle Lab, Floor Walk and Brand Dice, animated loops like Remix 100, the Makerspace Hub web app, and this site.

Gemini

Image generation and restyling: the 100-style poster, laser-ready black-and-white styles, logo and poster explorations, and the infographic slides for my classes.

Photoshop

Generative fill and expand for retouching, extending and finishing images, alongside the compositing I've done for years.

Glass office building with a wooden canopy at dusk — The base photo for all 100 styles

Poster grid of color style tiles of the same building — Style Reference Poster, color page

Infographic of the four-step prompt formula — Class slide: the modular prompt formula

Infographic showing a line drawing turned into a painted scene — Class slide: structure first, then style

Infographic comparing artistic style with fabrication-ready output — Class slide: style vs. maker generation

Reference grid of black-and-white image styles for laser engraving — Black-and-white laser image styles

Circular fire pit layout drawn as a linocut — Fire pit design, linocut style

Hand-drawn fantasy-style town map — Map stylization

Yellow hard-hat robot mascot holding a clipboard — Makesafe mascot, 3D render

Colorful poster reading Bodyweight moves, Calisthenics grooves — Calisthenics Academy poster concept

Pen-and-ink drawing of a 3D printer and its manual — 3D printer line art

Photoreal robot vacuum with an eye patch and a G — Optimus Grime, photoreal

Grid of illustrated workplace safety rules — 5S safety graphics

Engraving-style landscape of a bridge and wooded island — Ink landscape, made in ChatGPT

The base building restyled as a watercolor — Style 091 from the poster

More from Yazaki

Beyond the Playground and the Makerspace: shows, recruiting, films, communications and programs for Yazaki North America, 2022 to now.

CES 2023

Yazaki Innovations at CES

The brief was a theme, “speed, strength, growth,” and I built a range of ideas from it: booth vinyl and pylons, the intro film, shirts, chopsticks, business cards and the invitation poster. The interactive kiosk app, built in HTML, was the sales team's tool, with talking points on the services Yazaki Innovations offered as a new venture.

Booth · Web app · Film · Print Watch: CES intro

2023

University Engagement

A “What's your Y?” recruiting banner built from intern quotes, a flyer that folds into a paper airplane with a puzzle inside, business cards, and a film with University of Michigan students. The flyer worked especially well for the intern program.

Recruiting · Print · Film Watch: University film

November 2022

California Tech Show

The “Napkins to New Business” event identity and a looping video board for Yazaki Innovations.

Event identity · Video board

2023 – 2025

Worldwide Engineering Conference

Promotional materials and exhibits, made with the R&D Playground: identity, a commemorative coin, venue layout and signage, nametags, a promo film and animation loops. In 2025 the Makerspace ran Make & Go there, with its own branding.

Identity · Wayfinding · Motion

2022 – 2023

Plant & engineering films

Films that show Yazaki's products and manufacturing to visitors and internal audiences: the J3 and J5 high-voltage plants, the YCC plant, the Engineering Testing Center (English, Spanish and social cuts) and the Optimus harness build. The Testing Center film was also shown to production teams in Mexico.

Documentary · Interviews · Spanish edit

2022 – 2025

Corporate communications

“From Our Family to Yours,” an automotive magazine ad meant to show both a focus on the future and a family identity. I put out a call with drawing prompts, and parents brought in their kids' drawings. Plus the Power. Data. Display. poster, AEM event graphics, and a 24-slide review of yazaki.com.

Magazine ad · Print · Event graphics · UX review

2023 – present

Headshots & recognition

1,000+ employee headshots, and recognition portraits and posters: Engineering Green Belts, AMUG's President's and Dino awards, and the 2024 Automotive News PACE Award.

Portraits · Awards · Studio

Early 2024

AI Olympics

Run out of the R&D Playground after ChatGPT and DALL-E came out: six weeks of new challenges for 90+ associates on 19 teams, testing the tech by generating images, recipes, websites and presentations, such as Week 3's “Culinary Marathon.” Many of the competitors went on to become Makerspace regulars.

Training · Program design

2024 – 2025

Product & patent photography

Studio and macro photography of connectors, harnesses, high-voltage components and patented parts for Patent Week, tech shows and product decks.

Product · Macro · Studio

2023

360° Dojo tours

360° tours of the automated wire-harness line process (the Sento line) in the training Dojo, shown in VR headsets at an exhibition in Japan.

360° video · VR

2025

Yazaki E-Bike concept

My first AI-video project: concept films and display and app scenes for an internal presentation of an e-bike connectivity concept.

AI video · Concept

2025

EI Tech Shop & HV Lab

Replacing campus signage: banners, door placards for the Engineering Innovation tech shop and the high-voltage lab, and photos of associates.

Wayfinding · Signage · Photography

More Yazaki photography

Events, product shots, signage and people from across Yazaki North America.

Overhead drone view of cars parked in rows — 2024 Yazaki Car Show, from the drone

2023 Yazaki Car Show logo

Wall-mounted charging unit glowing in a dark shed — DC shed, product photo

Small shed at sunset with its doors open — DC shed, mock-up

Connector with colored wires on black — EDS product shot

Orange high-voltage busbar connector on a dark surface — Zoran HV busbar connectors

Black and white door graphic reading RESEARCH — HV Lab research signage

Green banner reading PROJECT ZONE — Project Zone banner, EI Tech Shop

Panoramic 360 view of an open workshop floor — 360° photo

Engineers gathered around a demo table — EMDEP demo

Large room of engineers at harness tables — Ford BU harness VAVE workshop

Engineers laughing at a holiday party — Engineering holiday party, 2025

Speaker at a podium in front of a seated crowd — Town Hall, July 2023

Engineer riding a self-balancing scooter in the lobby — WWEC

Smiling man in a navy quarter-zip — Employee headshot

A generalist maker running a place for makers.

I grew up in Michigan drawing for hours, then picked up a camera, then a video editor, then design software. I studied media, promotion and management at Ball State University, with a minor in entrepreneurial management, and made videos for the Ball State Foundation on my own equipment.

Alongside school I second-shot 40 to 50 weddings in Michigan. After graduating I freelanced, consulted on video for Howden Group and marketing for Black Tent Productions, then joined Yazaki North America in 2022. I started at the R&D Playground, created in late 2022 to bring people back to the office after COVID, and when it ended I helped open the Makerspace.

What I'm proudest of is the community. The AI Olympics, Make & Tell, Make & Go, a jump rope club, a chess club and the Gardenspace all grew out of the Playground and the Makerspace, and the associate-instructor model connects people who share an interest.

I like building systems other people can build on: a workshop people can use without asking, a headshot booth that edits itself, classes taught by the makers who learned them.

Yazaki stretched one skill more than any other: training. Most of what I do, I figure out myself, and learning to teach others what I've learned is now one of the most valuable parts of my toolkit. I hope colleagues would say I bring ideas and I bring energy. Next, I want to build something sustainable and cyclical.

Experience

2022 – nowYazaki North AmericaR&D Coordinator, Engineering Communications
2022Black Tent ProductionsMarketing Strategist
2021Howden GroupVideo Consultant
2020 – 2021Ball State FoundationDigital Media Specialist
2020Joseph ProductionsExecutive Accounts Intern

Recognition

2022Silver CASE Award, fundraising video
2021Gold CASE Award, student-produced video
2021Ball State Student of the Year
2023FAA Part 107 drone pilot

Tools

Premiere ProAfter EffectsPhotoshopIllustratorLightroom3D printing3D scanningCADLaser cuttingHTML & CSSGeminiCopilotVeo 3

Contact

Have a film, a brand or a build in mind?

[email protected]

linkedin.com/in/isaacfmiller Plymouth, Michigan