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Design Thoughts

a short story

In 1996 I was asked to give a slide show and speak to a class of graduate students who were taking a course in furniture design for architects. I thought my presentation had gone pretty well, and at the conclusion I was asked to critique the drawings of a number of the students who had been given the assignment of designing a reception station for offices that were to be built in a converted warehouse. Examples of some of the things I saw were renderings of thin shelves hung from a ceiling with steel cables, suspended above a thick glass top, supported by a cast concrete post at one end and a random grouping of wood legs at the other. Legs were joined to one another with metal pipe and then bolted through the top with large connectors.

While each one of the designs was, of course, different, what they all had in common was the use of four or five different kinds of materials and the fact that every one looked like a miniature piece of deconstructed architecture. Realizing that I had just spent an hour and a half showing them my classically inspired pieces of, well, regular looking furniture, I suddenly felt like an anachronism among this group of hip young designers. I muttered something like, "Very creative, but I'm not sure where one would go to get some of these things built." Then I left, but not without the awareness that there are a multitude of approaches to the designing of furniture.

where I'm coming from

While modernism and it's contemporary offshoots continue to be the predominant influences in academic architecture and industrial design, as a craftsman in wood, I feel a kinship with artisans and designers of the past that extends back through the centuries. I owe much to those who worked out an understanding of wood as a material, created the joinery, developed the techniques, and invented the tools that I use today. Although furniture designs from previous periods reflect both the practical needs and the aesthetic tastes of particular times and regions, they can offer the present day designer/maker a rich mine of creative effort and achievement to ponder and be inspired by.

I have no desire to do reproductions, but I don't mind if my work is seen as being connected to the past, growing out of it and, in a small way, as going beyond it. The lavish and often monumental furniture that represents the best of the 17th and 18th centuries was created for royalty, and was used to express court grandeur, or was given to help cement alliances and marriages. Today, custom furniture is made for very different reasons and not usually figured into national budgets, so such outrageously extravagant works of the past, may be impressive, but seem much too over-done for our modern minds. When I look at these pieces for design inspiration, I try to mentally strip away the gilding, ormolu, ornate carvings, moldings and hardware to see if there is an "essential form" hidden behind the frou-frou that might help guide me in my own designs.

look and think

I look at the overall shape and the individual parts, and maybe a curve or undulation will catch my eye and make me say, "Hey, I like that." These shapes can be mentally cataloged, bookmarked, drawn, cut out and put in a folder, or whatever. How they might metamorph themselves and show up in a new way in some future work is part of the mysterious creative process. With known furniture examples going back to ancient Egypt and classical Greece, I encourage the beginning designer to become acquainted with the history of furniture and gain exposure to as many different things as possible. Check my resources page for some books that have been helpful to me.

As enjoyable and fascinating as historic furniture is for me, I am even more interested in and excited by the best work of present day designers and craftsmen. The past twenty five years have seen a renewed interest in handmade craft, and furniture makers have continued to refine their techniques and designs until there are now many mature craftsmen doing pieces that are exceptional in every measure. The seven Fine Woodworking Design Books have helped to document the evolution of handmade furniture over the past two decades, and hopefully there is a new generation of artisans eagerly developing their skills and ready to express their own unique creativity.

The major question to be answered is whether young, intelligent, accomplished craftspeople can be satisfied with a limited income career while living in such a consumer driven, status conscious society. That, however, is another subject which I may address in the future . . . if I don't go broke first.

apply those thoughts

Again, when I look at contemporary furniture that excites me, I try to analyze my experience to determine why it is that I am drawn to. Is it the over all composition, or one part or shape? Is it a technique that expresses itself as part of the design like through joinery, or wood that has been bent? Perhaps it is the way a beautiful piece of wood has been set off with string inlay, or the color combination of two different woods used together. My ambition is to create pieces that people will respond to emotionally, that will cause them to experience pleasure before they have had a chance to intellectually determine if it is their "style" or not. I look for furniture which will elicit that kind of response in me and then try to understand what it is that is generating the attraction I feel.

Such reflection helps me to build up a repository of design ideas that nurture and guide me in creating the actual furniture I build. Each individual must seek both without and within to bring forth those forms that he or she can say "Yes" to; but sooner or later that search will require the designer to sit down and draw actual designs, either at the drafting table, or for those who have mastered a good CAD program, at the computer.

draw it up

While James Krenov may be able to get by with a free hand sketch on a piece of scratch paper, such an approach would be disastrous for me and 99.5% of the furniture makers I know. I do front and side elevations on a small drafting board, working with a few basic templates and a flexible curve. With these simple tools I can create almost any shape I want. Smaller pieces, like chairs and end tables, I draw at a scale of 3 inches equals 1 foot, and larger pieces at 1 1/2 inches to the foot. Such a scale allows me to work out most details and gives me a very good idea of how to proportion individual design elements to create a pleasing whole.

When I am finished, I have a map of where I want to go when I begin construction, as well as a detailed, scaled picture to show my client. Along the way to the finished design, I have usually generated additional shapes that may be useful in creating future pieces as well, discarded ideas that I thought looked good in my imagination, but took on a less appealing form when actually tested on paper. I will almost always offer a client a couple of variations on a leg shape, a base or how to configure doors or drawers. I save most of my drawings for future reference and to provide a record of my own evolution as a designer.

from mind to hand

Design, for me, and I think for many furniture craftsmen, is very hard work. I would rather be busting my butt milling eight quarter bubinga in the shop, than spend time at the drawing board. But all those inspirational feelings and transcendent ideas mean little in the way of creativity until they take form; first as a realized design, and then as the three dimensional object, which then can be used and experienced by others.

I enjoy discussion, and encourage you to e-mail me if you have a question, or would like to suggest a topic to be covered at some time.

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