To study contemporary chair design and construction

Evan Dunstone travelled to the United Kingdom and the United States of America to study contemporary chair design and construction.

In his report, Evan notes that for the Studio Furniture Maker, chairs are considered the most challenging item to produce commercially. Chairs are difficult to design well and, due to the many small parts and complex techniques involved, difficult to quote on accurately from a drawing. Many small makers in Australia simply refuse to make them.

There are so few examples of successful studio furniture makers in Australia that the best way to disseminate this information is by example. Evan found that by following his own conclusions and having a successful business, he will influence other designer/makers.

Conclusions:

Designing and manufacturing chairs is difficult to do profitably for makers of fine furniture. The most successful makers have good basic equipment, distinctive designs and a talented team of craftspeople. Marketing, especially in the early stages of the business, is extremely difficult. The single most important ingredient to success is productivity. The most efficient methods/techniques possible must be employed to achieve the desired quality. Someone like Brian Boggs shows how inherently slow techniques can be done efficiently and that productivity need not mean a compromise in quality.

Education for both makers and designers in the UK and the USA is a big issue. The design colleges in the UK seem to provide some useful skills to graduates, especially in the area of marketing and presentation, however I heard repeated complaints from employers and from the graduates themselves that almost no attention is paid to the pace of work. This criticism was particularly strong of the American schools. Indeed both the North Bennet St School and the School of the Redwoods are notorious within the industry for producing unemployably slow graduates. There was not one school I visited in England or the USA that I would actually recommend an aspiring maker to attend. The most sought after employee in both England and the USA is a craftsperson who has been trained by one of the big English workshops (such as Allen Peter’s) as a traditional apprentice.