the quest for quality

So in my last post i detailed about making some more furniture for my local gallery and i made a nest of my 'cant' tables, i have included some photos of them and showed the detail areas that i am trying to improve on to get the all important quality factor in my work.
  i think the quality will come with time, as you probably are or arent aware i have not been making furniture long but have always been very practical with my hands so i feel this has stood me in good stead. Also being a designer helps in the practical side, understanding how things work, drawing out how they assemble all adds to the skill of making but one thing that i am still learning and i feel will take years to fully understand is the properties of wood. How wood is constantly changing and never stays as a constant. And these traits of wood i have to prempt or factor in when im making my pieces. So far i have had a number of trys before i am happy with the final piece. Wood is never truly straight and making sure the wood is as straight as possible and the grain runs in the same direction to allow for natural movement and allow the wood to expand all at the same rate is a struggle. So this area has been particulary important for the nest of tables, to make sure they sit right and level and dont tip, so selection of certain pieces of wood was vital. Couple this with only having wood from local sources meant my choice of pieces was limited, but i feel i overcame these hurdles fairly well. But as mentioned above the quest for quality and dare i say it perfection continues, a trait nearly every designer has.

the catch up part 2

So my second attempt at updating my life online continues with detailing what i have been making for my local gallery. If you remember my 'scape' mirrors are sold in a local gallery and the owner has asked me to make some more designs to display. So since returning from cumbria i have been making a nest of the 'cant' sidetables. After making the first prototype a few months ago now i had to do alot more testing into how the table top was secured into the frame, as it is based on a cantilever construction and i had to make sure the table top could hold a fair amount of weight, in keeping with traditional sidetables of the same size. I found that metal helped alot! and so the new design incorporates metal pins that go through the wood frame as well as the acrylic top, but all consealed in the frame work.

So once this was achieved i set about scaling down the table to make a smaller version that would slide underneath, hence a nest of tables was created. This was not as easy as it seemed but finally i reached a size and proportion i was happy with and set about buying the ash from my local wood yard and preparing it for working.

The first table had a clear top but i wanted the design to be more stark and colourful so i looked into gettting some different coloured acrylic panels to use for the table top. But annoyingly i could not source any coloured acrylic thikcer than 5mm. My design needed 10mm or the whole principle would not work. So i had to settle for white acrylic sheets, which if you look at the sneak pic i will post on twitter later today looks amazing, and gives a great modern contrast, which i am really pleased about. So these past few weeks have been a manic mix of gluing, sanding, cutting, measuring, screwing and clamping in order to get these finished. And as i write this all i have to do now is one last piece of gluing and then the frames can be sealed and waxed/oiled i have'nt decided yet. Then they will wing there way to the local gallery and i shall also put these on www.talentunified.com as well so there will be two versions of my modern unique table to choose from.

Once they are finished i start on my next project which is bedroom based this time and will include a combination of reclaimed sapelle wood and an as yet undecided second wood that needs to contrast with sapelle really well. any ideas??

the catch up

it has annoyingly been far too long since my last blog post, and time i got up to date and explained why i have been so busy.

a couple of weeks ago i had a small vacation to the beautiful lake district in cumbria, a very imspiring place with truly breathtaking scenery. i will let the photos do the talking. i want to go back as i only stratched the surface of this vast county. i got alot of thinking done and had some good ideas for present and future projects. so well worth the 6 hour drive

sketchbook praise

i have 8 sketchbooks in total spanning 5 years of design and the number will keep growing. Many people ask why i have so many and whats inside them and why i always carry one around. if your not a designer its difficult to understand or explain how important a sketchbook is and how vital it is to sketch ideas and record thoughts and inspiration. but my sketchbooks note every design idea and thought basically.
everyone thinks a sketchbook should be a portfolio of your drawing skills. to show off how talented you are but i treat them as amoungst other things a big notebook with drawn ideas. I have never been good at drawing, not bad but not brilliant and many people in my uni days thought you had to be an excellent artist to make it as a designer but that is very far from the truth.
  Over the years i have got better at sketching and drawing due to the fact i carry a sketchbook with me and draw ideas, or joints or engineering principles for a design. I also write thoughts, quotes, designers to look up or websites to view. So it also acts as a diary in some respects. In terms of my career and passion for design, my sketchbooks are an importnat element. And for any budding designers out there i cannot stress how critical it is to record ever thought, idea or feeling, how ever varied, as it all helps to understand people, life and the world around you, and helps you better observe which to me is the most important part of design, bar none. so if you facny getting a sketchbook, get a good quality one. i use moleskine notebooks. heavyweight paper, small but not too small and stylish :) and get sketching, it will make you a better design through the years and improve your skills no end.

a bit of pressure

so for the past few weeks i have been making some 'scape' mirrors for a local gallery to sell. This was greeted with relief that someone believed in my designs and then a bit of a anxious feeling that i had very little time to get three mirrors made to a high standard in 2 weeks. And thats where the pressure begins, working to a tight time frame and also making sure i made them to a high quality to sell. which i had never done before. I was also not making these for myself/portfolio any more, i was making them for someones hall, bathroom, bedroom which also added to the pressure. But with this came confidence, that someone will fall in love with my design and want it displayed in their home for what it is, a unique stylish mirror. So while struggling with adapting the design for sale, making sure tolerances where adhered too, the right glues were used and an effective mounting system was used i had a renewed energy to make these the best mirrors. Usuallly i am not the best person when under pressure but while making these i knew i would get them done and get them done well.

I also had to write a care leaflet to make sure who ever bought them would be able to maintain the finish i had applied and hang them correctly, so this was another area i had not done before and another area of my design i had to think about and consider (it was not all about the making, as i found out). Valuable lessons were learned that i will carry across all my other desings as i try to get them to market. so this experience was a big test for what im trying to do. and hopefully i have passed, we will see. but it was far from just making a mirror as i found out.

anyone else had this kind of pressure? good/bad?

inspiring views

so i mentioned a change in direction on twitter for my next blog post and i thought i would just show a few pictures which inspire me and show my interest in travelling and people.
  i have been to many places in the world but still have a few more to visit (too many) and i try and take as many photos as i can, from very different vantage points. my favourite being cityscapes as they show you just how small you are in this world and how important and inspiring cities are. The three pictures show rome, munich and toronto and i have these three photos on my desk to remind me how amazing cities are and how much inspiration there is out there. Everytime i visit somewhere new i get so much inspiration and also i watch the world go by and observe, a very very important and underestimated thing to do if your a designer. Because as we all know you have to design for people and you have to observe in my opinion to fully understand them and make your design worthwhile, meaningful and purposeful

low impact draw unit

The next design i am featuring in this blog is the 'low impact draw unit' one of the first designs i made for my many portfolio sites. The idea for this came literaly out of the blue-which is rare for me- while i was trying to think of innovative draw designs. the idea basicaly was to try and minimise the amount of components used in makng an item of furniture, and this design seemed to fit that bill. The draw unit is made out of one piece of OSB board with minimal wastage due to the fact that all of the off cuts are used to make the draw runners. These draw runners work by slotting into the main frame of the draw unit and hence the draws simply slide in and out of these slots and this creates a very minimalist but effective draw runner system.

To add to the minimalist feel the draw handles are replaced with cut out holes and the finish piece is varnished to seal the OSB board. Also with this design i wanted to highlight sustainability as its main selling point, and this is achieved in many ways, from the soya based glue down to the FSC certified board for the construction. i wanted the draw unit to be as cost effective as possible with minimal waste but also not lose any design flair or originality and i think this is achieved. when constructing this it was paramount that an effective cutting list was drawn up to maximise the board being used and reduce wastage to a bare minimum.

This design also leads onto other items of furniture with the same cost cutting features and sustainable elements (these are currently being designed amd will appear soon) including a sideboard and possibly a wardrobe.
  construction of this piece was difficult as it was the first major piece of furniture i had made but i learnt from its construction and it still performs as intended. Another feature of this design is that it can be made high end and more emphasis put on the innovate runner system. But i didnt want to make another chest of drawers but make something different with minimal impact on resources. i also tried to make the framework with the least amount of elements to add to the overall idea of being cheap, low impact and concious. But to be honest there are areas that could be slimmed down even more but these will show through on the new items to accompany this design. but even slimmed down, the framework is extremely strong, coupled with the OSB board produces an extremely stable item of furniture.

Care had to be taken when cutting and fixing the runner system as this would determine how far the draws opened. So alot of trial and error was conducted to see how far the draws needed to open and how far they could be opened before the unit became unstable and/or the draws fell out. In conclusion a very simple idea and a staple of classic furniture design, but a design that is different in many ways and a design that also inspires other ideas and sustainable practices.