INSPIRING STUDENTS…..

EVERYONE IN THE POOL! The class enjoys the once in a lifetime opportunity to soak their feet in a Frank Lloyd Wright pool!

As we posted before, we teamed up with the California College of Art to host this year’s student chair competition. Recently, Wilsonart and professor Russell Baldon decided to take advantage of the amazing partnership between 30 Southern Californian museums, galleries and cultural centers called “Pacific Standard Time.” Many of these institutions showcased work which explored the question: What is California Design? What does Californian design entail? What does it look like? And why? Continue reading →

HAPPENING NOW IN CALIFORNIA…..

Twenty-six students learn about the history of the chair from design historian Grace Jeffers.

This fall, across Southern California approximately 30 institutions are hosting special exhibitions which feature only California artists and Craftsmen. This phenomenon is called Pacific Standard Time and is an initiative of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. For more information check out http://www.getty.edu/pacificstandardtime/.
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Laminate Redux! Return of The Millennium Collection

 

What a find! Brendon’s new table, in situ in the kitchen of his “pint-sized apartment”. Courtesy of Brendon Frasier

In 1999 Wilsonart released The Millennium Collection of 22 off-beat, digitally printed laminates developed by 22 talented artists and designers from diverse fields. This collective spoke to the wide-range of possibilities that could be produced through Wilsonart’s Custom Laminate division. Included in the mix were works by Christine Schultz, a tattoo artist, to the ultra urbane industrial designer Karim Rashid, to the popular ceramicist and style maven Jonathan Adler. The collection earned recognition from design media. It won the 1999 ICFF Editor’s Award for Body of Work, was featured in theCooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2002 exhibition SKIN: Surface, Substance and Design, and received The Chicago Athenaeum’s Good Design Award. Continue reading →

Wilsonart Student Chair Competition Mid-Term Critique at RIT

What are they looking at?

The future!

The future of chair design that is!

I captured Professor Josh Owen and a few of the Industrial Design students taking pictures of quarter-scaled models of chairs. This year the Wilsonart Challenges student chair design competition is taking place at Rochester Institute of Technology. On November 11th I presided over the mid-term critique. I was amazed at how fully developed the concepts were. About a quarter of the class could have begun building that same afternoon! Continue reading →

Wilsonart Student Chair Competition Training at RIT

Danny Teague of Wilsonart discussing laminate application methods with students at Rochester Institute of Technology

“HEY! Y’all might want to put on some safety glasses when you use that router!” was heard in Rochester, New York last week. When a student, who was raised in south Texas and hadn’t been back in several years heard ya’ll it brought back great memories! That tumbl’n Texas tumbleweed Danny Teague lead the students in the Industrial Design Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology in a hands-on how to work with laminate demonstration. RIT is the school chosen to host this year’s Wilsonart student chair competition. Danny was also heard explaining “You might also want to move that wet adhesive brush away from that trail of sawdust you’re making!” Continue reading →

Wilsonart Launches Student Chair Competition at Rochester Institute of Technology

Hye-sun Min immediately found a fashionable use for a laminate sample chain.

This is the first of a series of blog posts that will follow this year’s Wilsonart Challenges…. competition as students at Rochester Institute of Technology develop and execute their designs. Follow their progress through May 2011, when the winner will be announced at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York. Grace Jeffers, design historian, materials specialist and director of the program, introduces some of the members of this year’s class in her first entry. Continue reading →