Wooden Chew?

As every year, Vancouver's Straight Line Designs had even more ridiculously fun pieces to show. I honestly don't know how or where designer Judson Beaumont gets his ideas, but they just never seem to stop coming.

Right out in front was his "Beaver" cabinet:

Clearly, it's been gnawed on by a beaver or two.

You know, the bees are pretty impressive, but beavers don't get nearly enough credit. They really are the civil engineers of the animal kingdom. I mean, that's seriously cool that a rodent evolved to build dams, canals, and lodges.

They were also showing this dresser, which I thought was terribly clever already as a place to store clothes:

But then the booth rep told me what it was called and the light bulb lit up over my head: "Little Black Dresser." Get it? I think it's hilarious.

Not at the show, but on the website I noticed this piece which I'd not seen before, which is also very cool, the "Marionette" dresser:

The name of it is fairly obvious, but I also think there's something wonderfully, playfully surreal about a piece of furniture floating in mid-air without touching the floor. I love it. And this is another piece that I think could add whimsy to anyone's bedroom; that is to say, I don't think this absolutely has to be in a kid's room. But maybe that's my own inner-child typing.

©2009, Ryan Witte

Characters

I had the pleasure of including Vancouver's Straight Line Designs in my coverage of the show last year, but this is another company I will always keep up with, because Judson Beaumont's work is always so imaginative and fun.  Here's some of the new stuff he has this year.

This is "Canned Seat":

A sardine can, and I love that the key provides a little tabletop.  It's so Oldenberg.  This totally reminds me of that store Think Big.  Does anybody remember that from the '80s?  I used to love that store.

A major theme for Beaumont would seem to be pieces that are destroyed, broken, or are self-destructing--so here's the "Oops Cabinet" that he was displaying at the show:

Not at the show, but a new item I noticed on the website, "Sobey Dressers":

At first glance I liked this because it looks like a row of little buildings.  But it's really in the subtle details.  All the drawers have one knob, like shirt buttons, except for the top one, which has two, like eyes.  And they're all smiling.  I've said it before, but this is another case where if your furniture smiling at you doesn't make your day just a little more pleasant, I'd say you can't possibly have a very good sense of humor.

But the thing I think I was most delighted to discover at their booth this year is that they've started working with ceramics.  Here's their new Vase:

So the flowers are like faces.  Awesome.  They had some all white ones that they'd evidently baked RIGHT before the show, and I guess they don't have images of them, yet.  I think I preferred those, because in all white, you maybe don't notice right away what they are.  In fact, I had to see it from the side, actually, to notice that it was a shoulder and arm with hand-in-pocket.  That moment of discovery was just great, though.

I guess maybe I have a thing for anthropomorphized design objects, but those are really fun, so I'm not apologizing.

Straight Line Designs

(BC) 604-251-9669

©2008, Ryan Witte

Little Landscaping

The umbrella company here, Italy's Magis, makes contract furniture.  As you may have noticed, I'm not going to talk about contract on Architextures.  It's often very modern, beautiful stuff, but even in a corporate environment, I find it to be very stale and cold.  Company conference room is the only place I can think of where the businesslike character of typical contract furniture would be worthwhile, personally.

But Magis Me Too is their kids' line, and they have a couple of really fun things.  I think their "Alma" chairs are really beautiful, actually:

Great for outdoors, and totally childproof indoors.  They have this very pretty organic design growing out of the structural ribs on the back:

I think the colors are gorgeous, too, especially in combination.  They're so not goofy, tacky primary colors like companies always seem to think kids' stuff has to be:

Here are some kids' chairs called "Julian" that are just absolutely adorable:

Come on now, that's CUTE.  I'm sorry, but if seeing these guys standing around on the lawn didn't put a grin on your face, you'd have to have a heart of cold stone.

This is very cool, too.  A kid-sized living room set, "Piedras," made of (polyethylene) stones:

The great thing about this is how you could incorporate a place for your kids in your garden landscaping.  So listen to this: next to the garden, there's a patch of like white gravel with this furniture in it.  In the center of the gravel, an oval patch of grass mimicking an area rug.  You could even have like two little manicured trees on either side that look like floor lamps (and uplight them at night--awesome).  You could put up a little trellis with flowers, whatever, growing on it behind the couch, so it looks like a wall, gives your kids privacy, and blocks some of their noise.  Sure kids like to run around a lot, but I think kids would LOVE that.

It's a little bit Flintstones, but it also reminds me of Isamu Noguchi's Momo Taro (1978) at Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY:

--Photo Tim Rice

Speaking of which, if you've never been to Storm King, please do go this summer.  It's a truly magical place.

Magis Me Too

info@magisdesign.com

©2008, Ryan Witte