Another thread wandered off into the matter of furniture design; in particular, whether there could, should or is scope for original design – designs unlike any seen before.
The subject was prompted by a poster saying that he didn’t want his furniture to be like everyone else’s. My own immediate thought was that the general form of all furniture types has long been settled by traditional designs that fit human bodies and usages, so any new original design is going to be essentially a decorative or style effect overlaid on an already extant design.
Some disagree. 🙂 So here’s a thread to put the pros and cons, the arguments for and against, the illustrative examples supporting one view or another.
I’ll point to this first:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2008/03/08/a-guide-to-good-design
To me this article suggests that the essential forms of current furniture types is long settled and is based on human ergonomics and behaviours that are basic to all humans everywhere and throughout history. It also demonstrates that there are different options within an overall design but that these too are pretty much fully explored.
Of course, the decorative aspects that may also be overlaid on these fundamental designs might themselves be regarded as “designs”, many of which are original in that no one has made a chair or table that LOOKS like that before. But it still has to FUNCTION as a chair or table, in the same way as all other chairs and tables of those kinds.
Is the decorative overlay on furniture “original design”? Perhaps – but not necessarily of furniture. Often the decoration is, anyway, suggested or taken wholesale from some other domain, such as architecture or clothing or even natural forms. Think of a ball and claw foot at the bottom of a leg that looks like the rear leg of a lion dressed in some frilly trousers. 🙂
And what is “original” anyway? Brian Boggs has this to say:
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“For me, answers to these [original design] challenges seem to emerge in the process of sketching, but not so much as a result of the lines I lay down on paper. Ideas seem to take form best when my thoughts allow them to – not because I “think of them.”
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To me that says that design ideas that coalesce in a human brain already existed in the human cultural matrix that an individual found themselves in. They often aren’t “original” so much as something already extant mediated into a different context.
But what do YOU think?
Lataxe
Replies
I’ve heard the same “we’ve done it all” theory put forth regarding science, music, literature, etc. I wonder how many times over the centuries some learned man has said “we have reached the end of discovery”?
There's no end to discovery but I agree that form -> function, and to a great degree that affects design. Whenever I've built something out of my own mind, I've generally take elements of one or more styles, wood combinations etc that I think look good together. So that's design, but it's not original.
In the last FWW was a picture of a four-way tube joint (best I can describe it) that I've never seen before in wood. The miracle wasnt design, although that was intriguing (it has no practical application, like furniture), but the skill and imagination someone had in order to create such a thing.
Ive confessed here and elsewhere I am not an artist. I need other inputs to help me create things. There may be a few out there like Frid, Maloof and earlier creative forces who developed a "style" but there is still the basic form, fit, function that has to evolve for furniture, anyway, to be useful.
Art is different, but I have to say there are some VERY artistic people out there working wood, and I give full credit to their skill and vision in creating art. It's not all practical, but it's all beautiful. Well, most of it :)
Many years ago several Chess Grandmasters stated that Chess had become a known game; that is, all of the possible moves, all of the possible strategies that could be devised, had been played out; that one could memorize all of the moves, from move one to the final result. Yet, Chess continues to be a masters'-level undertaking... the same with the even-older strategy game "GO".
For me, woodworkers continue to define their work, ultimately, as a Chair, or a Table, or a Desk... So long as we continue to define our work within these contexts, then the result must somehow fall within them - you can't build a desk, and have it be something else: for all that we may do to it, it still has to look and function as a desk.
The key, to me, is to define your work as something other than a known context (or result), or to define your work in such as way as to be broader in scope than a known thing, like a desk.
In business, if you define your market in such a way that you are more than 25% of the market (the way that Greyhound and Trailways did, many years ago), they you're not thinking broadly enough.
With that said, I build sculpted furniture (when I say 'furniture', well there are only so many categories of 'furniture'), and I'm comfortable with my designs being innovative... if not everyone's taste (including my wife, who often asks me to tone-down my efforts, when I build something for our use).
So, other than furniture (which is its own limiting container), there are no limitations on wooden wall or standing wooden sculptures; there are no limitations on the integration of wood, glass, leather, and other fabrics. We limit ourselves when we say furniture or clocks or ...
Mdorsam, you say:
"So, other than furniture (which is its own limiting container), there are no limitations on wooden........".
That is a great insight and put very succinctly. In effect, furniture designs are limiting because of the way we define furniture as something that serves a well-known and limited range of human-desired functions, of a fairly closed-set kind. The corollary is that an original furniture design would need to serve a new or previously unrecognised human behaviour that could be enhanced by some form of structure of the kind generally called "furniture".
That does happen, from time to time, because human cultures do generate new human behaviours. For example, no one could derive the various original designs for clock cases until there were humans who wanted to divide time and who had come with timepiece mechanisms to do so. .....
Mechanisms requiring various forms of housing, some of which have been incorporated in the category "furniture", resulted. They include tall case clocks but not wrist watches .... although we do sometimes say things like, "The horologist furnished him with a watch". Well, we did in Victorian times. :-)
The word "original" is the awkward one. Many people design their furniture. I do so myself in that I've built only one item out of probably hundreds to a plan. (It was four Veritas Adirondack chairs). Everything else I've made has been a familiar and identifiable item of furniture. The only designing involved has been the usual but personal arrangement of dimensions, materials and surfaces in various time-honoured fashions. Nothing original even though a table or small box I might make is in some sense unique because not a direct and detailed copy of another item, in factory-assembly style or to a plan.
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As you and other posters have mentioned, there's a lot that can be laid on to some variation of an extant and well-known furniture design-type that might be regarded as original design - of the material used, decorative overlay, surface treatment or various other elements additional to the functional elements. I suppose my desire is to differentiate that kind of original-design overlay from the design of the essential furniture to which it's applied.
On a personal level, I feel that such a differentiation is useful in deriving variations of extant designs that recognise the difference between function and decoration because I prefer to reduce or minimise the latter and emphasise the former.
There comes a point with some furniture styles where the decorative overwhelms the functional to a degree that obscures or undermines the function. A famous classical example is the tall and straight-back dining chair of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, infamous for being very uncomfortable to sit on yet famous for being a beautifully elegant object to look at.
There are a hundred and one modern designer makers constructing very (I would say excessively) decorative furniture that not only have decorative effects overwhelmed the functional aspects but they've also perpetrated various aesthetic blows to the eye! But that's a matter of taste, I suppose. :-)
Lataxe
A very interesting post, thank you.
There are of course a finite number of different types of furnishing, and save for those that are solely art for art's sake, they must meet certain criteria that enable interaction with the intended human users.
That having been said, there are a vast array of different styles for each class of furnishing and of course, new classes are arising all the time. Record storage became cassette storage, became CD racks became, well, firewood over time after all.
Look at a Boggs chair and a Chippendale chair. Both are for the same purpose, both have a seat and are practical for their use, but quite different. Sure, something revolutionary does not come along often, but fashions do change, woods of choice change, designs of choice therefore change and so unique work is done every day.
IMHO there is nothing wrong with seeing something, liking it and thinking - wow, I'd do that but...
I attach as exhibit A, an 'original' firewood truck. This is a shameless copy of one the boss saw in a DIY store in cheap and nasty battleship grey steel with really flimsy wheels. This one is made of 18mm ply (cheap stuff, not baltic birch) and, ridiculously, steam-bent walnut. Why? seemed like a good excuse to make a steam bender... So the shape is similar, the functionality is identical, the dimensions are very similar, but the execution very different.
Is this original, or a copy?
Is it different enough to sell, or would that be intellectual property theft?
I'd like to thank everyone for a very interesting thread... these are the questions and responses I've been looking to read, think about, and discuss.
Rob,
This bit of your post is of great interest and opens up even more questions in this area:
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"IMHO there is nothing wrong with seeing something, liking it and thinking - wow, I'd do that but...
I attach as exhibit A, an 'original' firewood truck. This is a shameless copy of one the boss saw in a DIY store in cheap and nasty battleship grey steel with really flimsy wheels. This one is made of 18mm ply (cheap stuff, not baltic birch) and, ridiculously, steam-bent walnut. Why? seemed like a good excuse to make a steam bender... So the shape is similar, the functionality is identical, the dimensions are very similar, but the execution very different.
Is this original, or a copy?
Is it different enough to sell, or would that be intellectual property theft?"
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Personally I think that, at bottom, there is very little truly original design in the sense of a design that contains not even a teeny part of things that have already been designed. And that for the vast majority of designed-things, the progenitors of most of their designed elements go back to the year dot.
I feel that designed things in today's world are rather like other evolved things: when reduced or analysed down to their base or fundamental aspects, we find design-elements similar to those in many other things, both current and going way back through history.
An obvious example is the M&T joint, possibly the oldest way of joining one part of wood to another. (Or maybe it's the scarf joint). :-)
Designed things can be viewed as having a form of DNA, which genetic material becomes more complex through time yet retains large amounts of it's primitive forebears.
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That doesn't mean that there can be nothing new. Things that evolve also generate emergent new features, sometimes of themselves and sometimes by combining with elements from other domains. Human beings, for example, are apparently colonies of all sorts of other creatures, as well as in some sense a whole and singular body-mind.
That clock case I mentioned (and probably your firewood container) were once "new kinds of furniture" but most of their design elements were already extant. Joints, casework, moldings, hinges, door knob ...... The permutation of those elements is what is new.
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If that's true, then it's a basis for questioning the whole notion of copyright and patent as a necessary means to support design (or commercial) evolution. Personally I can often see copyright as a rather unnatural and limiting mechanism that holds back the evolution of design. Someone wants a commercial monopoly so stops anyone else using a similar design - in commerce at least - for a significant period of time.
Many believe the lack of such a temporary monopoly as is granted by copyright will stifle innovation, as the only motive (they believe) for pursuing new design is monetary gain. But the truth or falsity of that is another issue. :-)
Lataxe
What a great range of interpretations and thoughts about "design" and creativity. I am the "poster" who ignited Lataxe's fire on the subject that ultimately got this post kicked off.
First off I don't believe that everything has already been designed and that all we can do going forward is mix up existing design elements in different ways. I do firmly believe in the "form follows function" tenet. Lastly, I don't believe in designing some different just for the sake of having it be different. There should be a compelling reason or benefit for it's unique existence.
When you say "I'm going to design a chair" it carries a lot preconceptions with it. But if you say "I'm going to design something to sit on" it allows a more wide open, interpretive, response. Of course you can't ignore ergonomics, if something looks really cool but cuts off the circulation in your legs when you sit on it, the concept is a failure.
I am an Industrial Designer by education and training. A lot of people don't know what an Industrial Designer is or does. A probably over simplified description is: Architects design buildings and Industrial Designers design everything else: products, furniture, automobiles, packaging, museums, interiors, exhibitions, and trade show booths.
This is wonderful discussion, let's keep it going.
“[Deleted]”
Well that test seemed to work, I'll give it another try.
I don't believe that everything has already been designed and our only option going forward is to take existing design elements and mix them up into new bundles.
I do firmly believe in the tenet of "form follows function".
I don't believe that designing something different merely for the sake of it being different is necessarily good design. If you design a cool chair but when you sit on it it cuts off the circulation to your legs, it's a bad design.
I think one of the issues is how you define your project. If you say "I'm going to design a chair" it comes with a lot of preconceptions that can inhibit your creativity. If you say "I'm going to design something to sit on" it opens up a lot of room for interpretation and radical concepts. Some of which might be game changing.
To a certain extent, originality is over-rated.
While I thoroughly enjoy the design process, and finally coming to my own separate peace on how I'm going to incorporate and integrate competing priorities, this is not about being innovative or creative; it is about wrestling with myself over design and functional requirements, and then precisely executing them. That a piece looks different, has pleasing lines, or symmetry is an attribute of the wrestling process: we use these attributes to achieve the designs we went into the shop to execute.
.... not sure that I expressed that correctly....
Katz,
This discussion has highlighted, for me, that point you make:
"I think one of the issues is how you define your project".
The cabinetmaking traditions do have a lot of pre-conceptions that tend to canalise the designs into tried & true forms and procedures. There is good reason for that (avoidance of those sharp-edged chairs and other poor functionality) but I feel you're right to suggest that opening up the design-envelope with a less bounded approach to furniture design can produce not just the decorative but a (perhaps rare) functional original design.
But it's just a feeling as it seems hard to find such a design.
The most fertile ground for original design also seems to lie in new materials, which can be engineered in ways that pure timber often can't. New ways of using timber also seem to stimulate original designs of a functional kind. One example might be Glulam structural beams as the functional design leading edge for many forms of plywood and other conglomerates of timber constituents enabling new forms.
Yet I still find it hard to imagine (or find) an original design that is truly original in that it doesn't incorporate a great deal of extant design. Plywood and glulam beams are very innovative and can enable innovative designs and constructions of many things. But a lot of the forms in which new materials and new usages of them are put to are familiar forms with familiar functions.
Is a John Makepeace chair an original design or still basically a chair?
Can you identify an original design that doesn't contain lots of the "DNA" from already extant designs? Such examples would make your case for there being undiscovered original designs waiting out there in design-space much stronger.
It would also illuminate something about how one discovers them. Because I believe (like Brian Boggs, as per quote in post 1, perhaps) that designs lie "out there" rather than innate within our heads. Our heads are the midwives not the mothers of them, as he puts it.
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An aside: what are the artistic part of the Arts & Crafts traditions within furniture making? Despite decades of trying to find a fully meaningful and resilient definition of "art" I haven't come across one. :-)
Lataxe
I think there's confusion over the term and semantics of "original design". As a designer, I never try to produce an original design, I do try to incorporate all of the criteria that I have, or the client might have, and let the problem solving/design solutions dictate what the design evolves into while trying to leave any preconceptions behind.
Here's an example of one my of projects from several years ago: I wanted to design and build a "jewelry box" for my grand daughter's one year birthday. Yes, I know the idea of a jewelry box for a one year old is a bit over the top. But I designed it so it would evolve and stay relevant to her as she got older. Her fashion accessories at one consisted mainly of headbands with flowers or bows in it. I wanted them to hang, be easily accessible, and visible. They would eventually be replaced with necklaces, bracelets, and maybe rings. They would also hang because necklaces that lay in a drawer will eventually end up in a tangled mess. I also petitioned off two horizontal surfaces for small objects. As a one year old it might be for pacifiers, as she gets older it might accommodate nail polish or lipstick. I also added two small drawers with pulls made of river stone and stainless steel. I wanted the pulls to provide a nice tactile quality. The last part of the equation was that I wanted to, subtly, personalize the box just for her. My solution there was to make the overall shape of the box, as viewed from the front, to be a lower case "h". Oh yeah, her name is Haley.
Check out the photos, I think the box looks unique but that wasn't the goal, it's simply the result of my design solutions.
Every time I tried to come up with a design from scratch, I realized that there were reasons why some things had become standardized. That is, over time, our ancestors had refined things to a point that my original ideas weren't improvements. But I recognize that there are people who have mastered the classic designs enough, and incorporated new influences (and new tools) into their skill set, and so things move on.
Personally I perceive two methods to create an original design is to change something fundamental. First, change the material. Plywood then plastic introduced the opportunity to explore shapes that would have arduous to produce in wood, possible in bamboo and rattan and doable in pliant materials such as plastic. A good example is the 'egg chair' used to good effect in the movie "Men in Black".
Much more difficult to change a fundamental rule. "Things to sit on were invented for status and comfort. A civilized being sat on a chair, away from the cold, damp floor. As Western civilization evolved, chairs became a part of life, at first for the moneyed classes, and ultimately, for the all. By 1532, the Spanish writer Perez de Chinchon would distinguish his countrymen from the Moors by saying, "We Christians sit at a proper height, not on the ground like animals." from the introduction of the book "chairs a history" by Florence de Dampierre.
Now imagine if we changed the concept of furniture, such as chairs and table by removing the legs. Mind you, I don't mean to lower furniture to floor level but rather to mount (or hang) it on a wall or from the ceiling. The impact to your design encompasses not only furniture but the rooms they're in. Try it. Say a bar or pub. Pick an item and fit it into the idea. Now do iterations that evolve the idea. Throw in cultural influence and see how that impacts the design. This is one of my little mind games that I play while waiting in line, waiting online and filling time.
Or if you want an easier challenge, imagine that you had to build with material that was devoid of Lingum (igneous plant, woody plant - a plant having hard lignified tissues or woody parts especially stems). The material is pliant but not stiff in any way. Hint, hint: try 'rope'.
Just my 2 Canadian cents.
Iain
I'd agree on the point on semantics. here is a definition
Original:
created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation.
So the three questions this definition brings up are, first,
Asuming a work is created directly and personally by a woodworker, Is the woodworker consciously copying, or imitating an existing work? If not, some would agree that the work is by definition original. Others would raise the second question, is he doing so unconsciously?
Personally, I think that if the answer to that question matters, than it implies that original work in any pursuit can only verifiably be done by someone that has never interacted with society, lest they may have in the past caught a glance or tasted or heard something that became the origin of the idea in their mind, making it no longer their 'origin'al work.
The third question is: is it true that the workers perspective of copying/imitating is not important, but instead whether something is original is determined by a 3rd person perspective?
I believe that is a difficult stance to take; consider-
Someone completely new to woodworking sees another person make a chair. They are unaware of another chair existing that Is similar, so they define the work as original. An experienced individual knows that the chair is in fact very similar to a common design, and so defines the chair as unoriginal.
Is something being 'original' subjective to which 3rd party is observing it?
Or is 'original' an inherent trait of an object that exists deterministicly?
If the first is true than the discussion is meaningless (a real possibility) as it can't be talked about generally but instead defining 'original' is a case by case and person by person exersize. If the second is true then two artists on opposite sides of the world, both creating something completely new to their knowledge, entirely in a vacuum with no influence from any culture or each other, if they create the same thing then they have not had an 'original' thought.
Ergonomics certainly plays a critical role in designing things that will have an intimate interaction with human beings. But some of those "rules" are cultural. For instance some societies eat meals while sitting at a low table on a floor cushion as opposed to on a chair at a 30" tall table.
There are so many opportunities to innovate if you leave your preconceptions behind and really think about what you want to accomplish with your work. As I've previously stated, I don't believe in doing something different just for the sake of being different. But I think we are selling ourselves short by just shrugging our shoulders and going down the same paths our predecessors have blazed.
Obviously I'm passionate about creativity. I've been a professional designer for over 40 years and still get excited every time I face a new creative challenge. Is it easy to create a successful innovative solution? No, but it's so worth it when you do and we should never stop trying.
I second the preceding comment... and passion.
For me, the key is to build what I imagine (after I've figured-out how to make it structurally sound); and, if it happens to be creative, then so be it.
I doubt there is anything new under the sun that hasn't been done is some sort of form. What I hear is your friend wanting to find his voice in woodworking. Looking at many different forms and designs might him to lead to some sort of design he likes and wants to make. Seeing lots of different designs might lead to something "original" enough for him. All of this is a good problem to have.
I recently started making a project for my wife. It is my first all original design. Having said that, I am sure someone else at some point in time has made something like this. So, when I say my own design, I really mean I am not working from a plan or copying something I am aware of. This would be too much to say to folks so saying it is my own design is what I say.
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