Final Critique

I had my final critique today, with two of our lecturers from last week, Tina Christensen and Troels Svendsen. Both of them are professional furniture designers and we got to see some of their amazing designs over the course of their careers. This was the first official critique from a design professional (besides Flemming, Bjorli, and Nils-Ole, but they haven't really critiqued the chair at all). And I was definitely interested in getting an opinion from people who do this for a living.

Here are the main points I made when presenting my chair:

• I wanted no exposed edges, so every end (either rod or tube) dies into a larger tube. 20mm tube dies into 25mm. 6mm rod dies into 25mm. And 25mm makes a complete loop. This creates a simplistic aesthetic.
  
• I started designing in profile, but moved to 3d view, which allowed for a better aesthetic from all angles.
  
• The 20mm "spines" are placed in a way to be both visually appealing and structurally supportive.

Here are the notes (from the critique) that I wrote down right afterwards and some borrowed from others who wrote for me:

• Troels started by saying that he really liked and appreciated the "hierarchy" within my chair, how the 25, 20, and 6mm look together, and how the ratio works.
  
• Tina started by saying that the chair looks very comfortable despite being completely steel, and that she liked the proportions a lot.
  
• Both of them really liked the spines, how they started inward on the top and flared down and outward towards the legs. And they also liked how they interacted with the 25mm tube.
  
• Troels suggested it was a "great way to update the traditional cantilever chair," which has become almost a standard in steel chair design.
  
• Tina said that although the chair uses three different types of steel, it is very "understated."
  
• They both liked how the rods bent on a separate line from the spines, following their own path and creating their own space in which to sit.
  
• They ended by giving me my only piece of criticism, that the seat is a little bit short (as in depth-wise), due to the rods being the only seating element. You can see it if you look closely. The only way for me to have fixed this would be to have added a rolled tube going from leg to leg, which would have detracted from the aesthetic of the chair. I mentioned that and they agreed that I made the better decision. The solution in the future would be to create a slightly deeper chair to account for the seat's shortness.

So, all in all, the critique went better than I could have ever expected! It is definitely validating getting such high marks from professionals on my first steel chair. Tina asked me if I had wanted to work with steel to which I said yes. And she replied that it showed in my chair. After the crit, a bunch of fellow students came up, wanting to sit in it and test it out for themselves. Bjorli even came over and commented on how he liked how it turned out.

Overall, this was the easiest design I've ever done. The finished product looks almost exactly like my first sketch. Design dilemmas were kept to a minimum, and the only real tinkering was with the human proportions. And, while I didn't go crazy experimental with my chair, I do think it has some commercial appeal. I'm hoping that my fall furniture studio goes as smoothly. If so, I may have found my niche.

Also, I finished this project DAYS IN ADVANCE. I have NEVER EVER done that. I always dawdle and tinker and draw out my projects, and this was like, "Oh, I'm done? Really? Nothing left to do? Well, alright. I guess I'll go home and sleep now. Boy, that just sounds weird coming out of my mouth."

Personally, though, I think I need to not look at my chair for a couple of weeks so that I can look at it with fresh eyes later. I've got every square centimeter memorized right now so I can't really tell if I would change anything on it or not.

Wednesday is our big exhibit, so I'll be taking pictures of everyone else's chairs and posting them up for you all to see. Meanwhile, take a look at some pictures I took of other students' steel tube and/or rod chairs from my studio.