A lot of books and classes teach you how to design furniture. Few teach you how not to design furniture. In many ways, I think these points (my points; not real points) are as important to learn as understanding proportion, line, form and whatever else your design method is selling.
Caveat: All of these “bad” methods have been used at times with great success. Usually the outcome is terrible. But every once in a while you chow down on that weird mold on that cheese, and it turns out to be penicillin. But usually it’s poison.
1. Exaggeration
“Let’s make the legs of this table really skinny (or really chunky) to convey lightness (or weight).”
This is one of the most common things beginning designers do. And the results are legs that look like an earthworm inhaled a torpedo. Or your table became a Daddy Long Legs.
Yes, do make changes to your initial form, but make small changes. Don’t go from a 1/2" component to a 3" one. If you want to make big changes, have the courage to first make a sample component in scrap wood. That usually reveals the mistake.
2. Shock
I work with a lot of beginning chairmakers who, when given enough rope, default to insane geometry. This is the extreme end of the Bell Curve of Exaggeration discussed above. The difference is that many of these “shocking” angles that they lay out are also impossible to assemble. There are physical limits to how much your components can bend during assembly. And it is surprisingly easy to design a chair that won’t go together without some stupid pre-assembly chores.
Look at the furniture record (that is, stuff that was actually assembled and survived the process). That’s where I begin my design process. Limits are real. And getting around them is usually a dumb-ass overcomplicated process.
3. Unexpected Materials
Making an 18th-century highboy out of chipboard is an artistic statement, not a piece of furniture. So is making a pallet out of Cuban mahogany. “Playing” with materials like this is barely acceptable during a freshman class in conceptual art, much less a furniture shop.
If you think you’re being clever with your materials, then there’s probably something else about your design that is weak.
4. Unconnected Traditions
I’m not going to make this about white guys wearing jika-tabi in their suburban dojo. Instead, this is just a caution when you decide to mix cultural traditions that you are not part of. Is your family from Appalachia and then moved to Detroit? Then maybe you are the right person to explore a connection/convergence between soul music and mountain ladderback chairs.
I’m not on the staff of the “cultural appropriation police.” I’m just saying: Think twice (and study three times) before carelessly mixing traditions.
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