Sep
10

By

Fray Chair concept is a playful exploration of color and form

Category: YankoDesign

The Fray Chair is a vibrant new concept that celebrates the intersection of playful design and bold color experimentation. Designed by Liam de la Bedoyere for the Pantone Dualities Rendering Challenge 2025, this chair is not yet in production but is already capturing attention for its fresh approach to both structure and style. The challenge invited designers to reimagine products using at least three shades from Pantone’s Dualities material pack. The result is a striking series of visualizations that highlight just how transformative color can be.

The Fray Chair stands out for its unique construction. The chair’s frame begins as three unified poles that elegantly split apart or “fray” to become both the legs and the support for the seat and backrest. This clever design gives the chair a sense of rhythm and movement, naturally inviting a creative play with color. Rather than a static object, the Fray Chair feels alive with possibility, and its segmented frame becomes the perfect canvas for exploring complementary and contrasting colorways.

Designer: Liam de la Bedoyere

The use of Pantone’s Dualities pack was integral to the design process. Each rendering of the Fray Chair features a bold mix of hues that create unexpected harmony. One version delights with bright green, yellow, and hot pink, evoking a playful, almost retro vibe. Another pairing of turquoise, lavender, and pink feels fresh and modern, while a combination of navy, yellow, and fuchsia brings in a contemporary edge. The subtlety of peach, lilac, and dark blue in another variant shows how the design can adapt to different moods and interiors. Each colorway demonstrates how a simple shift in palette can completely transform the personality of a piece.

Liam de la Bedoyere’s chair is more than just a showcase for color. The frayed structure makes the Fray Chair visually engaging from every angle, while its rounded seat and smooth, sweeping lines promise comfort and approachability. The chair’s playful silhouette and inviting colors make it a conversation starter in any setting, whether imagined in a modern living room, a chic café, or a creative studio.

While the Fray Chair remains a concept for now, it offers a glimpse into the future of furniture design, where experimentation is encouraged and color is celebrated. For collectors and design enthusiasts alike, it’s exciting to see such open exploration of materials and hues, especially in a market that often plays it safe. The Fray Chair serves as a reminder that good design can be both functional and joyful, and that sometimes, a little color can go a long way.

The post Fray Chair concept is a playful exploration of color and form first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sep
10

By

Nendo’s Helically-Mated Pair of Chopsticks

Category: Core77

Remember Kaare Klint’s Propellor Stool, where the helical legs nest together?

An unlikely relative exists in these Rassen chopsticks, designed by Nendo for manufacturer Hashikura Matsukan.

“Chopsticks ordinarily come in pairs, but the Rassen chopsticks are a single unit. They’re separated into two for eating, then rejoined into one form when not in use. We used the artisans’s hand skills and a multi-axis CNC miller to create them.”

“For four centuries, the town of Obama in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, has manufactured lacquered chopsticks. Obama’s lacquered chopsticks have been recognised as the hardest and most beautiful of Japanese lacquer chopsticks since the seventeenth century, when they became known as Wakasa-nuri. We designed these chopsticks in collaboration with Hashikura Matsukan, a manufacturer who continue Obama’s traditional manufacturing techniques today. ”

Sep
9

By

bag collection uses bulrush biomaterials to map mexico’s vanishing wetlands

Category: Design Boom

reductio ad lermaense bag collection uses bulrush biomaterials

 

Reductio ad Lermaense is a collection of bags made from bulrush-based biomaterials that examine the ecological, cultural, and political history of Mexico’s Ciénegas del Lerma from 1870 to the present. The Ciénegas del Lerma once represented the largest wetland in Mexico’s central plateau. Today, only 11% remains after more than 170 years of industrial pollution, water extraction, and other anthropogenic pressures. These changes have disrupted the wetland’s biodiversity and weakened traditions such as bulrush weaving, historically practiced by local artisans. As ecosystem deterioration has progressed, bulrush (Typha latifolia) has shifted from a valued resource to an invasive species.

 

The project by Manuel Díaz Tufinio reinterprets this material condition through design. Using bulrush-derived biomaterials, the designer developed three leather-like bags that chart the progressive loss of the wetland over time. Rather than proposing a solution, the series functions as a critical design artifact that reflects the ecological transformations of the Lerma lagoons.

all images by Manuel Díaz Tufinio unless stated otherwise

 

 

cartographies of Mexico’s last wetlands by manuel diaz tufinio

 

Designer Manuel Díaz Tufinio crafts each bag in correspondence to a specific moment in Mexico’s wetlands history. The 1870 bag (60 × 20 × 5 cm) references the first attempts to drain the bodies of water by the Mexican liberal government. The 1951 bag (28 × 17 × 5 cm) is shaped from a map that coincided with the creation of the Lerma System, a vast network of canals and pipelines that diverted water to Mexico City. The 2025 bag (10 × 8 × 5 cm) represents the current state of the Chimaliapan lagoon, reduced to a fraction of its original size and capable of holding only minimal objects. Their progressively smaller storage capacities serve as a metaphor for the loss of ecological function.

 

The title Reductio ad Lermaense references both the endangered Lake Lerma axolotl (Ambystoma lermaense) and the rhetorical device reductio ad absurdum. This dual reference underscores the absurdity of the wetland’s steady disappearance and the intertwined loss of species, materials, and cultural practices.

Reductio ad Lermaense is a bag collection made from bulrush-based biomaterials | 1870 bag

the project explores the ecological and cultural history of Mexico’s Ciénegas del Lerma | 1951 bag

industrial pollution and water extraction have reshaped the wetland’s landscape | 2025 bag

centuries-old bulrush weaving traditions have weakened with ecosystem decline | image by Anne Kinnunen

bio-based cellulose leather combines bulrush fibres, seeds, Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)

the design transforms bulrush into a leather-like biomaterial for new applications

materials samples

outlines of the lagoons are taken from hydrological cartographies

the bio-based material’s elastic characteristics are similar to those of leather

biomaterial gets laser cut to achieve more defined silhouettes

 

project info:

 

name: Reductio Ad Lermaense
designer: Manuel Díaz Tufinio

materials: Bulrush fibres, seeds (Typha latifolia), Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), Wool
thesis supervisor: Eeva Berglund
advisors: Anna van der Lei, Ena Naito

photographer: Manuel Díaz Tufinio, Anne Kinnunen

 

 

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

 

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

The post bag collection uses bulrush biomaterials to map mexico’s vanishing wetlands appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Sep
9

By

A 3D-Printed Business Card Embosser

Category: Core77

This 3D-printed contraption is by Igor Daemen, an Eindhoven-based product designer. “I designed this businesscard embosser to be modular and 3D printable without using any support and without any hardware required to assemble,” he writes.

“The tolerances are tight,” Daemen explains. “And some materials work better then others. I have had best results using Basic PLA.”

You can download the files for free here.

Sep
9

By

Poise coffee table project brings minimalist elegance to your space

Category: YankoDesign

Designralk’s Poise coffee table reads like a design‑project brief that turned into a finished piece for modern homes. The studio, a fresh‑faced collective of young designers, blends youthful energy with a deep respect for timeless craftsmanship. Their mission is simple: explore materiality, balance and form so that everyday objects become quiet statements of style. Poise is the result of that mission, a coffee table that feels more like a sculptural centerpiece than a functional slab.

The table’s silhouette is stripped down to its essentials. A smooth wooden tabletop rests on two symmetrical, bent‑wood arches that serve as both support and visual anchor. Those graceful curves are not just decorative; they demonstrate the strength and flexibility of natural wood, turning a traditional bending technique into a modern design language. By letting the wood’s natural grain show, the piece celebrates material honesty while keeping the overall look restrained.

Designer Name: designralk

Every dimension of Poise was calibrated to create a sense of equilibrium. The arches appear to cradle the surface, giving the impression that the table is balanced on an invisible axis. This careful proportioning lets the warm texture of the wood integrate seamlessly with a range of interiors, from sleek Scandinavian apartments to cozy mid‑century modern living rooms. The minimalist silhouette never overwhelms a space, yet the sculptural legs provide a focal point that can spark conversation among guests.

Beyond its visual appeal, Poise embodies Designralk’s broader philosophy of functional art. The table invites users to pause and appreciate the relationship between form and function, encouraging a mindful interaction with the room. Its clean lines keep the surface uncluttered, while the subtle drama of the bent‑wood legs adds a touch of intrigue. This balance of simplicity and subtle artistry makes the piece feel both useful and expressive.

For collectors and design enthusiasts, Poise offers a rare blend of craftsmanship and contemporary sensibility. The studio produces the table in limited runs, emphasizing quality over mass production. Each unit is hand‑finished, allowing the natural grain to tell its own story and giving every table a unique character. This attention to detail turns Poise into more than a piece of furniture; it becomes an heirloom‑worthy object that can be passed down through generations. Its minimalist elegance, thoughtful material use and harmonious proportions make it a timeless addition to any home. By marrying function with subtle artistry, the Poise coffee table invites modern dwellersto experience balance in everyday life, turning a simple coffee table into a quiet celebration of design.

The post Poise coffee table project brings minimalist elegance to your space first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sep
9

By

Phaze concept device lets you toggle between focus and rest

Category: YankoDesign

Digital distractions are everywhere for the past few years and many people find it difficult to truly concentrate or relax at their desks. Phaze, a concept device by Dame Seo, Minsu Kang, Yujeong Kim, Sumin Park, and Yejin Na, proposes a simple yet innovative solution to help users create clear boundaries between work and rest. Although Phaze remains a concept, its thoughtful design already stands out for anyone seeking a calmer, more productive workspace.

Phaze centers around a tactile, physical device that sits on your desk. Its main feature is a set of soft blue tags, each representing a different mode such as “work,” “meeting,” or “rest.” The device acts as a central hub, and by placing a tag into it, the user signals the system to automatically shift their digital and physical environment. For example, dropping in a “work” tag could launch productivity apps, silence unnecessary notifications, and even change your desk lighting to boost focus. Switching to a “rest” tag might pause alerts, lower the lights, and play calming sounds.

Designer Names: Dame Seo, Minsu Kang, Yujeong Kim, Sumin Park, and Yejin Na

The beauty of Phaze lies in its simplicity. Rather than navigating through menus or toggling settings on multiple apps, users make a single, physical gesture to change modes. This approach brings a sense of ritual and clarity to the workday, making it easier to transition between tasks and truly step away when it’s time to rest.

Visually, Phaze is designed to be inviting and unobtrusive. The frosted hub and pastel tags are soft to the touch and pleasing to the eye. With its gentle curves and subtle color palette, Phaze fits naturally into any modern workspace without adding clutter or noise. The device looks almost like a piece of art, but it is thoughtfully made to encourage better habits and healthier routines.

Phaze is also about reducing interruptions. The system is designed to filter notifications according to your chosen mode, allowing only the most important alerts to get through when you’re working. During rest periods, notifications can be softened or silenced entirely. This thoughtful notification design helps protect your focus and makes it easier to truly recharge.

While Phaze is still a concept for now, it offers a glimpse into the future of workspace tools. The idea of using tangible objects to control digital environments is gaining traction, especially as more people realize the toll that constant digital interruptions can take on productivity and wellbeing. Phaze’s approachable design and intuitive functionality show how physical devices can help us regain control over our digital lives.

The post Phaze concept device lets you toggle between focus and rest first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sep
9

By

Researchers Developing Plastic Recycling System that Doesn’t Require Sorting

Category: Core77

One of the largest barriers to plastic recycling is proper separation by type. If you’re trying to recycle polyethylene or polypropylene, and you throw some PVC into the mix, it contaminates the batch and makes the whole thing unrecyclable. In countries with disciplined consumers, like South Korea or Japan, you’ll see recycling bins asking consumers to separate their recyclables by category; in the standout Japanese town of Kamikatsu, residents sort their garbage into no less than 45 different categories.

Research chemists at Northwestern University are working on a plastic recycling system that does not require sorting. They’ve discovered “a new, inexpensive nickel-based catalyst that selectively breaks down polyolefin plastics consisting of polyethylenes and polypropylenes — the single-use kind that dominates nearly two-thirds of global plastic consumption. This means industrial users could apply the catalyst to large volumes of unsorted polyolefin waste.” Even better, the catalyst is unfazed by PVC, and can break down PVC-contaminated polyolefin.*

“One of the biggest hurdles in plastic recycling has always been the necessity of meticulously sorting plastic waste by type,” said Northwestern’s Tobin Marks, the study’s senior author. “Our new catalyst could bypass this costly and labor-intensive step for common polyolefin plastics, making recycling more efficient, practical and economically viable than current strategies.”
“When people think of plastic, they likely are thinking about polyolefins,” said Northwestern’s Yosi Kratish, a co-corresponding author on the paper. “Basically, almost everything in your refrigerator is polyolefin based — squeeze bottles for condiments and salad dressings, milk jugs, plastic wrap, trash bags, disposable utensils, juice cartons and much more. These plastics have a very short lifetime, so they are mostly single-use. If we don’t have an efficient way to recycle them, then they end up in landfills and in the environment, where they linger for decades before degrading into harmful microplastics.”

Polyolefin’s recycling rates are an abysmal 1% to 10% worldwide, largely because the material is so laborious to separate. If the Northwestern researchers can scale up their process, that could change this equation entirely.

*Explaining PVC contamination: Typically when catalysts are used to break down plastic, and they run into PVC, the PVC starts to decompose and releases hydrogen chloride gas. This gas is corrosive and deactivates the catalyst, halting the recycling process.
In contrast, the catalyst used by the NW researchers actually increases its performance when it runs into PVC.

Sep
9

By

BMW’s No-Helmet-Needed Electric Scooter Concept

Category: Core77

For those accustomed to four-wheeled vehicles, what is the biggest barrier to entry for motorized two-wheel transport? BMW Motorrad, the carmaker’s motorcycle division, reckons it’s the hassle of safety gear. They’ve thus unveiled this Vision CE concept, an electric scooter designed for “the elimination of the need for a helmet as well as protective clothing, offering riders an increased sense of freedom and a casual, carefree riding experience.”

“The centrepiece of the BMW Motorrad Vision CE is its safety concept: a metal tube composite known as the ‘cage’. Together with an appropriate seat construction with seat belt, it ensures a safe and emotional riding experience without the need for a helmet or the usual protective clothing.”

“The cage’s reduced overall height and open, airy design, combined with a long wheelbase, give the Vision CE a stretched, dynamic and visually light appearance.”

The futuristic-looking ride can also self-balance when stationary, so riders don’t need to put their foot down at a red light.

There is, however, a kickstand for parking.

The project’s presentation makes me wonder if the designers and marketing folk weren’t quite on the same page. While the concept description reads “the Vision CE offers an emotional, creative and fresh take on commuting, describing the future of urban two-wheel mobility,” the imagery seems like it’s targeted more at Instagram influencers than people who commute to jobs:

I will say that the translation from rendering to model looks pretty seamless:

At press time no production plans were announced.

Sep
9

By

From Imperfection to Innovation: How Digital Materials Support Sustainable Design

Category: Core77

This post is presented by the K-Show, the world’s No.1 trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry. Visionary developments and groundbreaking innovations will again lead the industry into new dimensions at K 2025 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Chris Lefteri: Nicolas, before we dive in, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at Adobe.

Nicolas Paulhac: I’m the Director of 3D Content at Adobe Substance. My background spans industrial design and CMF (Color, Material, Finish), where I focused on how products are made and how various industrial processes shape material transformation.

At Adobe Substance, we offer a suite of five specialized applications for material authoring, texturing, and staging—empowering 3D artists and designers across diverse industries to create digital materials, apply them to products, and visualize their designs. My role involves leading content production within these apps and curating ready-to-use assets for our Substance 3D Assets library, which provides the foundational elements creators need for their 3D projects.

Nicolas Paulhac, Director of 3D Content at Adobe Substance © Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Chris Lefteri: Perfect! And how do you bring the world of real materials into the Adobe software?

Nicolas Paulhac: Digital material creation can be approached in two main ways, each offering unique advantages. You can scan a real physical surface or create textures fully digitally.

Scanning, involves capturing real-world materials using a material scanner. It ensures high fidelity and precision by generating texture maps that reflect how the material reacts to light through key properties such as color, glossiness and surface relief. It’s ideal for replicating materials with accuracy and realism.

Materials can also be built entirely from scratch using procedural tools. This method offers maximum flexibility and control, enabling creators to define every aspect of the material’s behavior and appearance without relying on physical samples.

These methods are not separate but complementary to each other. Designers can start with a scanned material and then apply additional effects—modifying color, adding surface details, or introducing patterns not present in the original sample. This approach allows for creative freedom while maintaining a strong link to the physical reference, essentially crafting a personalized “material behavior”.

At Adobe Substance, we utilize both methods to produce textures. Each material in the 3D Assets library is a living asset designed to be personalized. Each material, through its exposed parameters that users can modify, acts as a mini-library capable of generating infinite variations of itself—whether in terms of color, surface grain, glossiness, pattern, and more. For CMF designers specifically, it can act as a kind of digital fab lab. This empowers artists and designers to build tailored digital materials that are both expressive and production-ready by preserving coherence with real-world material behavior.

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Chris Lefteri: And that Fab Lab is relating back to the way the materials, in the real three-dimensional sense, get processed?

Nicolas Paulhac: When there is a visual impact of the process on the surface, which is very often the case, yes. We begin by studying the visual properties of physical samples to reproduce them as faithfully as possible. But we don’t stop there. We analyze the forming processes—examining how each production step influences the final look and feel of the material. By connecting these insights to finishing techniques, we can introduce meaningful customization parameters into the digital material. It’s a way of embedding process awareness into the material itself, making it not just a visual replica but a customizable digital asset.

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Chris Lefteri: So, you must have a fantastic physical materials library?

Nicolas Paulhac: We collect samples, indeed—but not just physical ones. Our references span a wide range of formats, including images, mood boards, color palettes, and technical documentation. Depending on the material or process we aim to recreate, we have collaborated on specific collections with material suppliers, consulted existing resources, or studied real products.

In some cases, we even fabricate custom samples specifically to create digital materials. This allows us to capture larger surface areas or to isolate individual stages of a finishing process—creating each stage separately. By doing so, we gain precise control and realism when digitally reconstructing the material.

Chris Lefteri: And how do you stay updated with new materials, technologies and processes?

Nicolas Paulhac: Well, it involves staying up to date with trends in product and CMF design. We approach it with a segmented lens—by industry and product category. We observe how materials evolve across domains to ensure our digital content remains relevant and forward-looking.

When it comes to manufacturing, we engage with model makers and material engineers, especially when we need to understand how things are made.

Sustainability trends are very interesting to us. Eco-designed materials are part of our area of interest— even if, for now, our focus is on making their digital twins visually realistic. We believe digital tools have a vital role to play here—supporting sustainable innovation at multiple levels.

A great example is our collaboration with Chris Lefteri Design for the 3D Assets library, which attempts to show how digital materials can support early-stage creative exploration. Whether it’s advanced technologies like reactive surfaces—thermo-bimetals or auxetics—the digital medium allows us to mimic desirable finishes and potential applications long before physical prototypes exist.

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Similarly, our visual explorations around plastic injection processes for the K-Show enabled us to pre-visualize new effects linked to the use of fillers. This opens creative opportunities to make imperfection and transformation desirable—turning technical constraints into expressive material qualities for design.

Chris Lefteri: Yes, this most recent collaboration was looking at sustainability as a new way to realise the surface or composition of a material and to somehow represent that digitally. Was it a challenge for your team to work on our collaboration, or generally on dealing with unperfect materials?

Nicolas Paulhac: It was a truly stimulating challenge. The brief on composite plastics gave us the opportunity to explore not only how to visualize these effects with realism, but also how to parameterize each technical attribute to animate transitions between different surface states.

It’s a perfect example of what I mentioned earlier: building each effect digitally and procedurally, then combining them into a cohesive material experience. One of the key challenges was controlling the flow effect when mixing different components—capturing realistic dispersion patterns, the kind of surface visuals that emerge as fillers propagate and accumulate progressively. This type of work shows how digital materials can go far beyond static textures — they become dynamic, expressive tools for storytelling in CMF design.

Chris Lefteri: So would the user of the software be able to control this level of tunability, in terms of color, movement and flow of the material?

Nicolas Paulhac: Yes, users will have control over most of these aspects. Of course, there are the basic parameters—like color and glossiness—that come standard with every material. But in this case, the user can also control the size and amount of filler added into the formula, and adjust the parameters that influence distribution, density, and growth. These changes directly affect the resulting patterns, giving the user the ability to shape how the material evolves visually.

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Chris Lefteri: Are you seeing more industries adopting and engaging with digital materials outside the traditional ones of automotive and product design?

Nicolas Paulhac: Yes, we’re definitely seeing a wide range of industries embracing digital materials beyond the traditional domains of automotive, architecture, and product design. Industries such as fashion and consumer packaged goods, to name a few, are increasingly adopting digital solutions—not just for the product itself, but across every aspect of the design and visualization process. For example, even the contents of a package now need to be visualized with realism.

This shift opens new opportunities for designers to streamline workflows, enhance visualization, and maintain consistency between digital and physical outputs. It’s largely driven by the need for faster iteration, cost reduction, sustainability goals, and the expanding role of digital twins—from early-stage development to marketing visualization.

Chris Lefteri: Are you saying that individuals are using the software to develop food?

Nicolas Paulhac: Yes, it’s connected to the design. It also plays a key role in accelerating the overall process. It helps bridge design and production with the marketing phase, allowing products to be showcased earlier to consumers. This is a major advantage of using 3D: it enables visualization at an earlier stage, in a faster and more cost-effective way compared to traditional methods like photo shoots.

Chris Lefteri: I was actually thinking of how chefs could use it to develop their recipes or food. Because a lot of this high-end food is very visual, it is more about the Instagram image than the food itself. So, chefs could use it to design texture, patterns or effects for instance?

Nicolas Paulhac: I believe that’s one of the opportunities as we look ahead. A good example could be cosmetics—how do you accurately represent what comes out of the tube? Oils, serums, and other formulations need to be visualized realistically for marketing purposes. So why not use the digital medium to explore creative iterations in terms of design? It opens up new possibilities for visual storytelling and early-stage concept development, even before a physical prototype exists.

Chris Lefteri: And, for example — dare I say — even something like skin?

Nicolas Paulhac: This is actually a well-established practice in the world of games and film, known as “character art,” where specialized artists focus on texturing human and non-human skin—whether realistic or stylized.

Thanks to the level of realism we can now achieve, new opportunities are emerging in other fields like Medical and healthcare. Being able to visualize not just skin but full anatomy in high detail is proving valuable—for example, one of the applications is training medical staff with virtual surgeries.

Chris Lefteri: Very interesting. Also, you now have the more futuristic imagery which doesn’t even relate to a physical product – it is completely imagined. How do you approach this?

Nicolas Paulhac: A large part of the materials we create is dedicated to the game and VFX industries, where expressiveness and realism are key. The finality may differ across design disciplines but actually, the approach of creation isn’t so different. Whether the material is real or imagined, it still needs to tell a story. It’s about crafting what makes the material visually credible to the eye. We all go through the same instinctive reactions when we see a surface for the first time: is it soft or hard, reflective or matte, smooth or textured? These visual cues are essential to conveying emotion and materiality—how something is made, what it’s made for, and what it could inspire in terms of application.

Substance digital materials are based on PBR—Physically Based Rendering—which means they accurately simulate how a surface interacts with light. With the Substance 3D applications, creators can design fully digital materials in a hyper-realistic way while maintaining control over key visual properties that matter in their field of expertise.

© Adobe Inc. 2025 – All rights reserved

Chris Lefteri: How do you see the use of these digital materials and tools evolving in the future?

Nicolas Paulhac: Looking ahead, I believe digital materials and tools will become even more central to how industries design, validate, and communicate products. The goal isn’t to position physical and digital materials as opposing forces in product creation, but rather to explore how they complement each other in the design process. By doing so, designers gain more creative freedom to visualize and communicate a design intention.

Digital twins will evolve into more dynamic and interconnected systems, enabling seamless transitions between virtual and physical workflows like behavior simulation, real-time feedback loops and predictive design.

As sustainability becomes non-negotiable, digital materials will play a key role in reducing waste, supporting more confident decision-making earlier in the process.

Chris Lefteri: My final question is, going back in time now, what’s your favourite material memory from childhood?

Nicolas Paulhac: One of my favorite material memories from childhood is leather. My grandfather owned a small leather goods shop, and I spent countless hours watching him shape and repair leather bags. Observing the process—the way the material responded to heat, pressure, and tooling—sparked my fascination with how things are made. It was during those moments that I developed a deep interest in the transformation of materials, not just for their aesthetic qualities but also for their performance and surface effects. That early exposure continues to influence how I think about material design today.

NOTE: Chris Lefteri will be running design tours at the K Show on the 12th & 13th October. If you are interested in participating contact ktour@chrislefteri.com

Sep
9

By

Does your design studio need (better) company values?

Category: Design Week

The phrase “company values” brings many creatives out in a cold sweat. It conjures up the most excruciating parts of corporate culture – a world of forced-fun team building exercises and training sessions like that one in The Office.

But studies show that companies who create meaningful values, and commit to bringing them to life in the day-to-day experience of their employees, do better. They’re more productive, more innovative and retain their staff.

I know this, because last year I co-authored a book about company values with Dave Greasley, the owner of Sheffield-based studio 3800.

Values, it’s clear, have real value. And yet, 50% of people who work in a company which has a set of values, can’t remember what they are.

Part of the problem, Greasley explains, is that, “Most companies set them and forget them.”

Many leaders create a list of words that are inoffensive, unarguable and vague. Words like integrity, excellence, collaboration and respect. They mean everything and nothing, and so have little bearing on people’s real experience in that business.

But to harness their true potential, leaders need to take values more seriously. “For them to stand a chance, we need to give values as much time and consideration as we would our new website, or our financial targets,” Greasley explains.

Creative vs corporate

There is an added complication in design businesses. For some people, values, or the way they have traditionally been presented, feels totally at odds with the spirit of creative work.

This creates an “added pressure” on design businesses looking to create meaningful values, Interstate founder Jayne Connell explains.

“The challenge is to choose principles that resonate with a creative mind while also shaping the more grown-up, structured side of business: appraisals, career pathways and operations,” she says.

But balancing these two sides of the business while creating a set of studio values is well worth the time. By setting expectations, values can explain and encourage the culture that design leaders want to build. They can speed up decision-making, by empowering all employees to make well-considered calls within the framework set out by those values.

And they are especially useful in times of transition – or in fact crisis – to re-affirm what the business stands for and how it operates.

When Spencer Ryan stepped up as the new CEO of Vault49 recently, she worked with founders Jonathan Kenyon and John Glasgow to re-focus the team on its values.

“At pivotal moments, values act like a compass,” Ryan says.

“When I became CEO, we built our values into a strategic foundation – that gave me a platform to lead from and gave the team clarity on where we’re going. They also became a clear decision filter for me on where to focus the studio’s energy.”

Discovering your values

Like many businesses, Vault49 created its values by going back to its origin story. As Kenyon points out, this is a familiar approach that design studios take with their clients, teasing out the DNA which can link past, present and future.

“Studios are brands like any other, and the strongest brands root their values in their origin story,” he explains. “Ours came from our street art origin, where hustle, play, and swagger weren’t abstract ideas – they were a daily reality. Without that link back to the beginning, values risk becoming borrowed language.”

That translates very directly into Vault49’s values, one of which reads: “Vault49 was born from street-level culture. From the start, we’ve been grounded in community, unafraid to take risks, and driven to celebrate the beauty we saw in the world. Today, that same street-level lens guides how we see, think, create, and hire.”

But before diving into what your values should be, leaders need to be clear on what they want them to achieve.

As Gareth Atkinson, head of brand and partnerships at Mr B & Friends explains, “Values can play one of two roles for brands, but they can’t play both.

“They can reinforce who you are and where you are – in this instance, their role is to anchor and articulate elements of the employee experience. Or, they can be used to push you forward to where you’re trying to go. In this instance, their role is to connect employee mindset, decision making and behaviour to the company strategy.”

In this way, values can be used to cement a studio culture that’s already working well, or they can be used aspirationally to make changes that the leaders want to push.

This is an important distinction which shapes not only the output, the final list of values, but also the process for creating them. For example, if a studio wants to use values to drive a new culture, they may use employee input more sparingly than a company that wants to capture and codify how things currently work.

Understanding who you are

Patrick Duffy, the former executive creative director at Dice, is in the midst of creating the values for his new studio, Tonight.

“For me, it’s about understanding yourself before you start to speak to the world,” he says. “So I began by writing a business plan – not the sexiest exercise, but hugely useful in helping me understand what Tonight’s point of difference is in this overcrowded creative world. This was essential to understand before we go to values.”

Most people think four or five values is the maximum. But Richard Taylor, co-founder and CEO of Brandon Consultants, thinks “people can’t recall more than three” and Duffy agrees – “Like musketeers, values tend to move in threes.”

One of Tonight’s values is “Stay True,” which Duffy thinks acts as a reminder to his team about why, in a crowded and competitive landscape, he wanted to start a new studio in the first place.

“The most important thing for me is that we remain true to our goal of providing work that truly stands out – that we are genuinely an alternative choice,” he says. “’Stay True’ should always remind us of that ambition. And it’s also a banging Ghostface Killah track.”

Getting creative with values

Once studios have honed in on the core ideas they want to enshrine in their values, that’s where the creativity should kick in.

No business should really be falling back on those meaningless one-word lists of values, but especially creative studios, who know more than anyone the power of cut-through messaging.

A lot of values will end up coalescing around similar themes, but the best leaders find interesting ways of communicating them.

So for New York-based Sister Mary studio, commitments to empathy and diversity become, “a sisterly soul” and “devoted to diversity of thought.”

Founder Leigh Chandler worked on them with strategist Emily Penny, and she loves the “playfully religious tone that Emily injected.”

One of How&How’s company values is “Total Team Spirit” which is loosely inspired by the 1970s Dutch philosophy of Total Football. In that context, players moved fluidly between positions on the pitch. And although co-founders Cat and Rog How aren’t big football fans, that concept felt relevant to the culture they want to build.

“We want everyone in the team to feel connected to and supported by everyone else, and also open-minded enough to take up any position they need to at a given time,” Cat How says. “This could be as simple as helping the studio manager unload the dishwasher or take the bins down, or jumping in to help a fellow designer on some animation work.

“No-one is too big or important to do the small things in the agency, and when everyone mucks in together, then that is when the magic happens,” she explains.

The key of course is to make the values as memorable as possible, because the more memorable they are, the more likely they will actually impact people’s day-to-day behaviour.

Memorability can also be built into the way values are presented to the team. The pointless PDF is the route to avoid here.

The Browser Company turned its values into a beautifully-written and evocative road-trip essay. Amy Bedford commissioned this great animation to communicate PALS’ studio values.

And in 3800’s Sheffield studio, there is a stone chair marked with personalised etchings from different team members. It represents one of 3800’s values – “Own your seat at the table.”

“In our case, our values became four little brands,” Greasley explains. “Each has their own personality and identity. Each needed a campaign to drive them home and each one needs ongoing comms to stay engaging.”

Actions speak louder than words

But however clever the language, or creative the delivery, success rests ultimately on how well, or not, they shape the culture.

“It’s actually not about the values,” Greasley admits. “It’s the behaviours and actions that sit beneath the values that really matter.

“If your people don’t have the capability, opportunity or motivation to enact these behaviours, it really doesn’t matter what fancy words you chose at the company off-site.”

Richard Taylor agrees. “Brand values are only worth their salt if they inform how you make decisions. Design agencies all too often create their own brand strategy, plaster the values on the wall, and then don’t live by them.

“You need to make your values part of the fabric of your business, part of its soul.”

Values need to show up very practically in the way a business runs. They should inform the hiring process, and form part of annual reviews, to directly shape how teams are built and developed. They can underpin mundane, but significant, policies around things like expenses and annual leave.

At Interstate, Jayne Connell breaks the studio values down into practical explainers for junior and senior employees.

So for “Being Intentional,” junior employees would be expected to demonstrate, “curiosity, asking thoughtful questions and showing focused learning,” while more senior team-members should, “model being intentional by guiding others with vision, empathy and accountability in the decision-making process.”

At Vault49, this commitment to making values practical means they largely avoid the v word altogether.

“We frame values as actions so they’re lived, not abstract,” Spender Ryan explains. “Otherwise, they risk becoming just words on a page.”

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