Furniture Design and Custom Woodworking

Furniture Design Chair

Design is the first step to creating something that is truly your own. Designing your own furniture allows you to fully exercise your creativity which will be evident in your finished piece. Customize designs to the requirements expands what can be completed using you current skill set.


Basic Furniture Design

The first step to making a quality objects is its design. And the first step to excellent design is understanding and using basic design.

Furniture Design Ideas and Inspiration

Where do design ideas come from, and how original do the need to be, to truly be your own? Although design is a personal procedure, there are some basic steps to follow to finish a desired piece.

Sketches and Furniture Mock-ups

Once the proper concept is arrived at, there are a number of steps that often are used before the actual build. They include concept sketch, working drawings, and mock-up. Depending on the complexity of the project and the experience of the woodworker, various paths can be taken. It is often advisable for less experience woodworkers to follow as many of the steps as logically possible to have the best chance of reaching there goal.

Furniture Design Tips and Guidelines

Developing design concepts in functioning esthetically pleasing pieces involves both a artistic feel for the finished piece along with knowledge of historically balanced proportions. Assuring a good design involves the proper balance of the new and the old.

Custom Furniture and Design Sites

Craftsmanship will always show through in quality woodcraft. The following are sites showing the passion and creativity of woodworkers through their finished pieces.

An Introduction to Art and Design

For years I have thought, read and argued about the subject of Art. For my sins I attended art college in the late 1960s as art education was then being destroyed by a kind of cultural imperialism. I didn't realize at the time but I was extremely fortunate to be able to attend two of the oldest and probably two of the best art colleges in Europe The Ruskin School at Oxford University and later The Royal Academy Schools in London. Sadly, being a callow youth left them after six years of study with no real idea what Art was. I felt that although I had a pretty keen sense about what good art or good design was not, I had very little sense at that time, about what exactly good art or good design was. There was no clear definition. How reassuring to find twenty years later the Gombrich quote above that for me makes so much sense, and is so true to my own experience . There is no such thing as Art

Design Integrity

It's a big word 'integrity'. People with integrity fill me with a sense of admiration and awe for whilst I may aspire towards it, I know in my heart that it will always lie a step away from me. People with integrity are the same the whole way through. You know that they're system of values could never be compromised no matter how uncomfortable the situation. With these rare and wondrous beings you know exactly where you stand and that is a sense of great comfort for all of us who have the good fortune to be associated with people of integrity.