D = SL
Some people think that life is too short; others think that it is too long. Its not of course, it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do. Regardless, most of us strive to be happy in life. We fill our lives with furniture and products we use everyday. I endeavour to make these objects into instruments for unique experiences. Because even though we live in a society that revolves around technology and communication, our minds and senses remain our greatest assets. Our senses are in a constant need for fulfilment and entertainment, since all our experiences in fact take place in the present. My ambition is to enhance the present, to satisfy the senses, and to create an environment conducive to human encounters. When you enjoy art or music, it sometimes feels like you can see into the future. Futuristic and sometimes abstract, these impressions are sometimes too vague to be useful. My designs are not meant to be works of art; neither are they meant to be traditional pieces with traditional purposes. Instead I aim to unite the two worlds and utilise the best aspects of both: the vision and experience of art, combined with the functionality and craftsmanship out of tradition. In wishing for my products to be aesthetically pleasing, I have discovered that beauty can be often be created from a solid initial idea, good materials, skilful craftsmanship and simple functionality – all underlined by balanced proportions and harmonious forms. This formula results in long-lived products that age gracefully; in that way, your children and your grandchildren can enjoy and derive their own experiences from my work.
The Art of Making Furniture by Hand
So, what do I do for a living? Am I an artist? A designer? A cabinet maker? When I’m actually asked in the street or in the post office near the allotments, to say, “I’m a designer and maker of fine bespoke contemporary wooden furniture and wooden collectables fashioned from wood” is usually too much of a mouthful. Usually. Writing it is amusing though, “The art of making furniture by hand” is lyrical and expressive but the meanings of "art" and "handmade" are slippery and wide, and do give me pause. Here I hope to explain what the "Art of Making" means to me and what "Furniture by Hand" means to our time.
In the past 20 years, very fine furniture "made by hand" has become increasingly visible in galleries, shows, and print. Because this furniture varies widely in style, design, and use of materials, it is difficult to identify by name and to classify. In various contexts, "handmade" is often used. By emphasizing the importance of the craftsman, "handmade," or "handcrafted," does serve to distinguish this furniture from furniture manufactured in factories for mass distribution. Yet "handmade" is not technically correct. Much of the hard physical labor of working wood has been reduced in this privileged world by electric machine tools and most makers use them. But "handmade" does resonate with most everyone and is useful in bringing this furniture to mind and to market. I use "handmade" in advertising and print to describe the furniture that I build because of the connotation of the term: produced by a craftsman in a small shop.
Many of us in this field have wished for a more rigorous definition and description of our work. And, among the trade, the term "studio furniture" seems to be coming to the fore and gaining acceptance. My mission is to advance the art of furniture making, by inspiring creativity, promoting excellence, and fostering understanding of this art and its place in society. In a book published by the Furniture Society, Furniture Studio, an article by Edward Cooke, Jr. titled "Defining the Field" describes studio furniture. With respects, I paraphrase:
Studio furniture is defined by the scale of its production, the background of its makers (and their personal, original approach to design, materials, and technique), the workmanship invested in the furniture, and by the way it is sold. This furniture is made in small batches, or one piece at a time, in a studio or shop by skilled artist/craftsmen. These artist/craftsmen may be graduates of degree programs, more often are self-taught, but always continue to learn and explore. They have an abiding reverence for their material, a thorough technical knowledge of wood and woodworking, and a formal or informal art education. They pursue their own design, style, motifs, and methods. Studio furniture is not distributed through ordinary retail outlets. Pieces are sold through art and craft galleries or shows, commissioned by patrons, or purchased from the maker. With a miniscule marketing budget, relying largely on word-of-mouth, most studio furniture makers serve a local or regional clientele.
How do I fit in?
My workshop is tiny. I work there alone with the type of hand tools common to craftsman of old. I cut and I saw by hand. I chisel and I carve by hand. Even my handstands are by hand. My workbench is prominent. I cut out and work on usually one piece at a time, sometimes two chairs at a time space permitting. When I get to the assembly phase I like to proceed through and complete the finishing stage.
I taught myself woodworking by reading and experimenting. I have some formal training in drawing and art, but have broadened my knowledge by study and practice. During the building of my designs choices are made along the way. The criteria for these choices include dimensional accuracy and visual and tactile refinement. Risk abounds. Skill, commitment, and knowledge are everywhere required. Excellence is the only acceptable outcome.
Whilst I have had a few consignment agreements with galleries, almost all of my furniture is sold to the people who use it. This website, magazine ads, and publicity and word-of-mouth bring me to the people.
But is this art?
I believe that it is because our work exceeds the standards of craft and exhibits many elements of fine art.
I submit the fit, fabrication, and finish of our furniture to judgment by the principles of craft. My workmanship is careful, precise, and appropriate. The joints are fitting for the application and fit for scrutiny. The lines, forms, and edges are true to concept and exact. The surface is impeccable. The furniture will last.
My furniture carries the burden of function to judgement as art, but, if that is not a disqualifier, it expresses these artistic values. It is original in design and sculptural in form. The play of light and shadow over the furniture, the chairs particularly, elates. The figure, colour , and character of wood as a medium are handled with grace and integrity. The experience of sitting or touching delights the body and hand as the form, figure, color, and character delight the eye. Beyond the product, I submit the process. We can be lost in the work, investing creativity, ingenuity, and imagination to find inspiration and spirit.
My furniture has an honesty about it. There is no possibility of deceit. There is one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain. Often, when people see, sit, or touch, they say, "This is art."
Designers on Design
A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away - Antoine de St-Expurey
Make it as simple as possible. But no simpler. - Albert Einstein
The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring. Paul Rand (Design, Form, and Chaos)
We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed and a context which we cannot properly describe. - Christopher Alexander's Notes On The Synthesis Of Form concerning the design process...
Form follows function-that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union. - Frank Lloyd Wright
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Winston Churchill
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. - R. Buckminster Fuller
Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all. Everyone makes design decisions all the time without realizing itlike Moliere's M. Jourdain who discovered he had been speaking prose all his lifeand good design is simply the result of making these decisions consciously, at the right stage, and in consultation with others as the need arise - Douglas Martin (Book Design)
The details are not the details. They make the design. - Charles Eames
The lyf so sort, the craft so long to lerne. - Geoffrey Chaucer
To err is human, to forgive design. - Andrew Dillon
You can design for all of the people some of the time. You can design for some of the people all of the time. But you can't design for all of the people all of the time. - William Hudson with apologies to Abraham Lincoln
You can't get the experience of a good steak dinner through a nipple - you have to create a totally different, yet compelling experience. - Jon Meads
You need to "listen deeply" - listen past what people say they want to hear what they need. - Jon Meads
It's better to design the user experience than rectify it. It's the difference between a cathedral and the Winchester House. - Jon Meads
If there's a 'trick' to it, the UI is broken. - Douglas Anderson
Things that look different should act different
Things that look the same should act the same. - Larry Marine
Design without the ego.
In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they're not. "If I can see it, it's a failure" - Bill Buxton
"We will go into your houses and redesign them the same way your web sites are designed. The basement will be the first thing you see, the kitchen will be unreachable except through the bedroom and both bathrooms, the bedroom will be on six different floors, and the dog will be in every room at once." - Ann Feeny, Information Architect's Manifesto
Discovery and Invention
...you'll never have all the information you need to make a decision. If you did, it would be a foregone conclusion, not a decision - David Mahoney
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. - Richard Feynman
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy. - Richard Feynman
Just because it isn't done doesn't mean it can't be done. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be - Barry Glasford
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler
People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives. - Thomas Mann
Always listen to the experts. They will tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. - Robert A. Heinlein
Rigorous reasoning from inapplicable assumptions yields the world's most durable nonsense.
For every piece of durable nonsense, there is an irrelevant frame of reference in which it makes perfect sense.
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. " - Robert Wilensky
Simplicity, Consistency and Other Hobgoblins
Complexity is the Problem; Ease of Use is the Solution; Productivity is the Impact - an executive of a large computer firm, (quoted in Kelley, John Falk, "Natural Language and computers: six empirical steps for writing an easy-to-use computer application", University Microfilms International #8321592, 1983)
For every problem, there is one solution that is simple, neat and wrong. - H. L. Mencken
Don't make me think - Steve Krug
Easy is Hard - Peter Lewis, NY Times
Every time we get it idiot-proofed, Ma Nature produces cleverer idiots. - Robin Kinkead
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
The best journey is the one with the fewest steps. Shorten the distance between the user and their goal.
The main thing is that everything become simple, easy enough for a child to understand; that each act be ordered, that good and evil be decided arbitrarily, thus clearly. - Albert Camus
There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. - C.A.R. Hoare
It's easy to make things difficult, but it's difficult to make things easy.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. - Bernard Berenson
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly - Dali Lama
Users
Know thy user, and YOU are not thy user.
If the user can't use it, it doesn't work. - Susan Dray
If something is hard to use, I just don't use it as much. - Melanie Sokol, quoted in Steve Krug's " Don't Make Me Think"
Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
We see what we look for, not what we look at - Ulrich Neisser (paraphrase)
...pay attention to what users do, not what they say. - Jakob Nielsen
...This is so simple a five-year-old child could understand it. "Quick, run out and bring me a five-year-old child." - Groucho Marx
Users don't know what they want, and users can't always say what they know.
It is impossible to design anything that is foolproof because fools are so ingenious
To err is human, to admit having erred is not human.
If I made an error, at least let me finish my thought before I have to fix it.
If the user can't find it, it doesn't exist - HFI button
Even experts are novices at some point.
The user is NOT a lower life form - Ken Becker
Whadya mean, they're not all computer scientists?
Ooh, they have the internet on computers now - Homer
Communication and Design
A picture is worth a thousand words and that's the problem!
A picture is worth a thousand words, but it will take longer to download
A picture is worth a thousand words, unless of course, you're talking about a picture of a thousand words.
For any given thousand words, it's hard to come up with a picture - Yuri Englehart
It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong. - H.W. Longfellow
There is no urge so great as for one man to edit another man's work - Mark Twain
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt - Henry J. Kaiser
What you do speaks so clearly that I don't have to hear what you say. - Chuck Knox
Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect. - Benny Hill
There's a limit to the usability problems you can document your way out of. Things beyond that are training problems.
If you can't describe it simply, you can't use it easily.
If it's very difficult to write about then it probably doesn't have quality usability.
No you can't just explain it in the manual.
Process
If you don't care about quality, you can meet any other requirement - Gerald M. Weinberg, "The Zeroth Law of Software Engineering"
You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site. - Frank Lloyd Wright
No shortcuts today, I'm in a hurry. - Swiss saying
Planning is essential, but plans are useless - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Interface Design: "Design first and code later."
Carpenter: "Measure twice and cut once." -
Designing to Requirements and Walking on Water are Easy if Both are Frozen. -
If you can't afford the time to do it right, how are you going to find the time to fix it up?
Rigorous reasoning from inapplicable assumptions yields the world's most durable nonsense. -
The chief cause of problems is solutions. - Eric Severeid
The only thing more expensive than hiring a professional, is hiring an amateur. - Red Adair
The sooner you start to code, the longer the program will take. - Roy Carlson
Technology and Computers
If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside. - Robert Cringely, InfoWorld
it is a far better to adapt the technology to the user than to force the user to adapt to the technology - Larry Marine
The fault is not in thyself, but in thy system.
To err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer - Paul Ehrlich
Coding is long. Design is short. Paper is cheap.
No system is so foolproof that it can't be brought to its knees by a well-intentioned novice.
The joy of an early release lasts but a short time. The bitterness of an unusable system lasts for years.
Cute is not a good adjective for systems.
The effects of technological stress are communicated through emotion exactly because the source of the problem is not technical but cognitive... - Frank Spillers
Words to Live By
Since our problems have been our own creation, they also can be overcome. - George Harrison
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. - Albert Einstein
All the good ideas never lie under one hat - Dale Turner
We know very little, and most of what we know is wrong. - George Casaday
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up. - G.K. Chesterton
Eighty percent of success is showing up - Woody Allen
For every piece of durable nonsense, there is an irrelevant frame of reference in which it makes perfect sense.
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. - Bill Cosby
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try – Homer
If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.
Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.
Never attribute to malice what incompetence will explain.
Sometimes you just need a bigger hammer. - G Casaday Sr
A hammer is another way of saying persuader – Sasha
Supposing is good, but finding out is better. - Samuel Clemens
There is no free lunch. But sometimes if you eat a good breakfast, you won't need to spend as much money on lunch. - Cameron Hayne, CRIM, on cost justifying usability testing.
Truce is better than friction - Charles Herguth
You can learn at least one principal of user interface design by loading a dishwasher. If you crowd a lot in there, nothing gets very clean.
You can't prevent people from putting beans in their noses. But you shouldn't stuff beans in their noses. - Stan Schwartz
It's a jungle. Be careful out there.
Common sense is an uncommon commodity.
Everything in its place, and a place for everything.
If we build it, they will complain. - John (JR) Morris
To every action there is an equal and opposite criticism
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. You must get the old furniture of what you know, think, and believe out before anything new can get in. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it. – Dee Hock
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light - not our darkness - that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others." - Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech
Always proofread your writing to see if you any words out
