3 Designer-Manufacturer Collaborations Reflect Emerging Priorities

When companies collaborate closely with actual designers as opposed to marketing teams, they do so to tap into a current mood and align their products with real-life issues that concern users. A sampling of those instances quickly highlights three priorities that specifiers need products to reflect: sustainability, craft, and simplicity.

BOA

New Orleans–based OI Studio owes its stance on sustainability to founder BOA’s personal history as a native of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Her appreciation for lush Caribbean island life translates to a strict reliance on managed forests for sourcing and nontoxic finishes for biophilic designs.

ILSE CRAWFORD
For reissues of Hans Wegner’s classic designs for Carl Hansen & Søn, London-based designer Ilse Crawford created a palette of muted colors recast for the current time’s subdued mood. The resulting First Masterpieces collection features what Crawford describes as “not easy, trend-driven, or standard decorative colors, but ones that add depth and complexity.”

NAOTO FUKASAWA

Emeco’s aluminum seating—namely its Navy chair—already reflects the beauty of simple design. Industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa created the company’s Za stool to further celebrate that legacy and its inherent greenness. “Za comes from the soul of Emeco—made for lifetimes of use, with a minimum carbon footprint,” he says.

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