classic contemporary furniture

Latest pictures

Here are some very recent shots of one of the pieces within the new Pause collection. This is our final stage of tweaking and adjusting prior to finalising all the specifications.

Beauty is in the eye...

As a designer, visual aesthetics are of course important - it's got to look good to catch the eye of our audience. But is this a start point or an end point. What l mean is, should visual aesthetics be a key part of the brief, or a product of the design process?

A fundamental part of our own brief was shaped by our developing environmental and sustainability policies – key considerations were materials usage, minimising energy requirement in production, minimising waste in manufacturing process, and use of more environmentally friendly finishing, etc.

Once all these considerations are in the mix, the end product naturally takes on a simple, elegance, bourne out of a desire pare things down. The design is highly detailed and perfected, yet visually minimal, letting structure and material shine through.

There are many aspects and consideration to take on board in terms of developing furniture with a small environment footprint - our first collection, due for launch on August 15th, represents our first steps to achieving our sustainability goals.

To us, visual aesthetics are the product of the design process and our design philosophy. Beauty is definately more than skin deep.

Tailoring your furniture

Tailoring is not normally a word you would associate with furniture design and making. Most furniture available is 'off the peg' or at best available with a few variations in size or possibly an option on materials. But almost more important than product variations, is what about the whole buying experience? The feeling that you are buying something which is more connected to you personally.

Tailoring; creating something bespoke or semi-bespoke is about the relationship between yourself, the design, the caftsman, and, in the case of furniture, your home. It's about how it makes you feel and how you want others to percieve you.

This is Otto. Comtemporary classic furniture – tailored to perfection.

Final prototype nearing completion

Well, we're only four weeks behind schedule! Actually it's not surprising - over the last four weeks we've been hit by a couple of key factors which have been the main contributors to this delay. Firstly steel prices have increased considerably over the last couple of months, and are probably set to continue to rise. This has led to refining the design once more to see if we can reduce the amount of steel we're using whilst not impacting on the overall design aesthetic and strenght. Actually this has proved to be a valuable exercise, having made the changes, they're are actually an improvement! Also the reduced weight is beneficial in terms of shipping and assembly.

Secondly we have encountered some initial problems wiith sourcing of the right quality of FSC approved solid timbers. This is not the real issue at this stage as we have now located some really excellent timber, however our concern is the lead time. We are aiming to work to a six to eight week schedule, from placing of orders to delivery of the finished piece. As each piece is specifically made to order, this means we will need to ensure we can get hold of the raw materials at quite short notice.

Anway, this all  means that we're  looking at having the site live by the end of June, with an official launch date of September 1st. We hope!!

What is Otto?

Otto is the name of the first of the three businesses l will be launching over the coming six months. Otto is a new company, with a new appraoch; designing, developing, and marketing contemporary furniture.

The business is owned and run by myself and my brother Simon (the design talent). Whilst my background and experience is in brand and marketing, Simon will be providing the product and furniture expertise. Additionally we'll be drawing heavily on existing relationships and pulling favours wherever possible.

Our approach is to bring the manufacturer closer to the customer and customer closer to the manufacturer. We aim to develop a sales and marketing infrastructure which is not reliant on the usual retail outlet. We want to streamline the processes and interactions between manufacturer and customer. That is not to say we are looking to minimise customer contact, in fact the contrary is true. We are looking to provide a better level of service and customer involvement within the buying process. We want to develop a real sense of occassion and ownership in our customer interactions and within the whole purchasing process.

At this stage we are finalising the business plan and working on product prototypes. Even though we are looking to initially develop a small product portfolio, there is still a great deal to do in terms of being able to fully commercialise the idea - particularly on a very limited budget.