influences + inspiration + other facts

new zealand

The strategic importance of New Zealand is that it has none. In fact our much loved national symbol, the kiwi, discovered that to be the case when he found no one was chasing him. He gave up flying and opted for the simple life with his feet firmly on the ground.

It has been a little bit that way for us flightless humans who arrived a bit later. Geographic and cultural isolation has produced many quirky evolutionary twists that have served us well and the unexpected has often become normal.

In fact blokes like “Mad Richard Pearce” really ruffled the kiwi’s feathers by getting the world’s first flying machine into the air. Well, we think first ? Pearce was not good at putting ticks on his calender, so like all kiwis he was fairly relaxed.

Yes our ancestors, both Maori and European found they had to drop a few bits of baggage over board in the long trip south to the bottom of the world. Things needed to be done differently down here in response to a challenging but stimulating environment and thankfully, not always knowing things were impossible, we went ahead and did them anyway.

In fact it was the perfect environment for any one thinking he wanted to be a designer; an almost compulsory career really, right from the kick off.

my story

I grew up in rural NZ immersed in nature, mountains, rivers, sea and everything in between. With eyes wide open and an unfettered curiosity, my brothers and I, were constantly ‘inventing’ things to support the next adventure. We used only the raw materials at hand.

Not all canoes survived the rapids and not all rockets went up but underlying this quest for world domination, the unconscious processes of understanding materials and learning by trial and error were being refined.

Eventually I grew up and left this ‘unsophistocated’ playground for the structured world of industrial design.

After being immersed in the furniture industry and becoming submissive to the demands of production and the straight line, I eventually sensed the straight jacket that had enveloped me.

Late one night, having drawn one straight line too many, I knew the game was up. The instinctual need to escape erupted like a volcano. I picked up some bendy willow sticks and without thought, created a curvacious organic structure; not a straight line in sight.

The curves flowed with life and without the need for analysis, I knew there was something fundamentally right - I had by ‘accident’ returned to my ‘unsophistocated’ past.

Since that simple moment I have taken the straight line and bent it - where ever and as often as possible.