Five Trends influencing Fig40 today

Every designer has influences. We are not always as conscious of them as we should be, and so at the beginning of this new year I thought it would be good to step back and dig into ours in an effort to become more conscious of them. Admitedly, these have a furniture bias (we’re aware of that!) but do have relevance well beyond.

Here are 5 that appear particularly present.

The quality of a material, particularly in furniture has always been important. Contract office furniture seems to straddle a line between products and furniture, and as the visul and functional tone of offices continues to move toward the residential, the quality of a material is of increasing prominence. Natural materials such as solid wood over veneers, glass over acrylic and even concrete are becoming more common. Curiously, synthetic finishes, laminates in particular are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and muddy this perspective some, but perhaps are a further nod in the direction of an increase in the quality of a material.

There is a natural affinity we have with natural materials. While at universtiy, I was told of a study the British Government did on vandalism in public spaces and they found that plastic elements took a lot more abuse than did metal or wood elements. Perhaps the alien nature of plastic doesn’t sit well with us at a basic level. This acknowledgment and the shift in sensibilities in the market we work in is of particular interest today.

There has long been a charm to seeing the mark of a maker in a product. Clues to how something was made personalizes it and it reveals something of itself to the viewer/holder. Not that long ago, a blemish, due to process was frowned upon. Today however, in the right context, it is sought after.

We recently completed a project to cast some concrete parts. The moulds were made from a pattern we 3d printed and then had finished to make moulds. Some inconsistencies in the finishing of the patterns, where key features and edge details had been sanded off, translated to the final cast parts. This was of real concern to me, but not to our client who was charmed by them and saw them as a real asset.

Though very modern in it’s production method, there is the mark of craft in the execution and imperfection and that mark increased it’s value. On a very tangible level, when we are designing parts to be made, this is an influence that we need to acknowledge and invite tobroaden our approach…. although a little new to us and perhaps a little foreign.

On a broader level, stepping back from the execution of making a thing to what the thing actually is — the workplace is changing too. Our field of working furniture, is not what it used to be. There are far fewer ‘desks’ or ‘workstations’ that are owned by individual people. These are being replaced by a sort of institutionalized version of your local Starbucks. It is obvious with the rise of the sharing economy that the Millennial generation and beyond have far less need for permanence and ownership favouring furniture and spaces that can be adapted, added to for a larger group, or separated for a smaller group. The ability to move like this, mirrors the way people are living and working and presents a new set of interesting parameters for the development of products.

Digital manufacturing is often thought to be refer to 3d printing. While 3d printing is digital manufacturing, so is CNC machining, in the way MacBook Pro’s are made at a production level. Further to this, knitting, etching, laser cutting, even piercing have all risen to become legitimate digital production methods. This is really changing how objects are produced. Products in their specific form are being made in fewer numbers and with variation. This is enabled by the ability to digitally alter one product from the next. This is a field that is growing in technique, possibility and scale. It is changing what is possible in a production product and enters our conversations in the office with increasing regularity — while not widely used today, it won’t be long until it is.

Interestingly, there is a tactile and visual parallel between this and seeing the mark of a maker. Varied process leave different marks and have different parameters for finishing. They also can have a grain, all of which need familiarity to be used to useful effect.

In a recent talk by Jay Osgerby, he spoke of the sheer number of good designers designing good products for good companies and how difficult it is becoming to work on projects with meaning. I had a similar sense on return from the Chinese International Furniture Fair a few years ago. This idea of meaning is a slippery one, but one that seems to hold the key to creating products of value, products of meaning and ultimately successful products.

One way to develop and then articulate that is to look at it through the lens of a story. Why has the thing come to be? what are its attributes, its protagonists, antagonists and story arc in how people get it, use it, live with it, fix it, etc. And finally what happens at the end of its useful life. To consider all these things as linked events, as a narrative helps to explore them and help evaluate them for that vital meaning.

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