Hasta La Ideas

Based in a former bread factory in Berlin’s Mitte district is the production of IC! Berlin—a frames company that has its roots in a design student graduation project of the University of the Arts (UDK) from 1996. Students at the time, Harald Gottschling and Philipp Haffmanns had the idea to create eyeglass frames with hinges that would work without any screws, so they came up with a unique solution of a snap-in hinge that could be produced from sheet aluminum. And to make even more sense of this concept, the actual frames were created from laser-cut, anodized aluminum sheets.

Encouraged by their professor to turn this project into reality after graduation, they got a patent on their hinges and teamed up with Ralph Anderl to turn their idea into a profitable business. Now, 18 years later, the company has grown to 100 employees, a total product profile of roughly 1,500 different designs (of which about 70 are currently in production) and worldwide distribution. But despite their success and growth, the production has always remained in Berlin Mitte.

A laser cutter is the heart of the frames production. All of the arms and hinges, without exception, are produced with this technology.

Most spectacle frames, apart from the designs made from acetate, are laser-cut from aluminum sheets. But not all of them meet the company’s quality standards, as the scrap container in the picture above shows. They will all be recycled into new sheets of aluminum, so nothing is wasted.

The cut-out frames are being put through a metal roller to give them the right bend for a suitable fit.

After bending, the frames are being put in a steel press to angle the nose rests and the side bits in order to prepare for the assembly of the hinges.

Freshly laser-cut hinge parts and spectacle arms

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This image passed through our inbox today, it’s from a new book on the “Great Houses of New York” Sorry for the small size but a quick google search turns up nothing larger! A few more details about what surely must have been one of the great studio spaces NY has ever seen are available here and here and here. For another larger pic of the space click on through.

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As the Portland Mini Maker Faire fast approaches, (September 15th-16 at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), we at Hand-Eye Supply and other makers through out the Pacific NW are quite busy getting our booths prepared for the greatest show (and tell) on Earth. To give you a sneak peek of what you might expect to see at Portland’s Mini Maker Faire we talked with presenters Rosemary Robinson and Britt Howard about Portland Garment Factory, their innovative company that is reinventing local manufacturing.

Portland Garment Factory is an independent, female-owned manufacturing company, established in Portland, Oregon in 2008. PGF takes pride in manufacturing quality apparel in the United States using traditional craftsmanship and sustainable business practices. PGF offers new and established brands high quality construction, pattern drafting, size grading, low minimum line production, materials sourcing, technical design and product design consultation.

Origins

PGF was started by Britt Howard after she received endless compliments about the baby clothes she designed for her daughter, Piper. After a serious inquiry from a New York boutique owner, Britt took the idea of taking the line into production seriously. She searched for a place that would make and grade patterns, work through samples and do full-scale production for independent designers. The search results were unimpressive.

Overseas factories have insane minimums, long lead times and impossible communication barriers. PGF was quickly conceived and instantly welcomed by the fashion community in Portland. Nine months down the road, Rosemary Robinson came in as a potential client starting a womenswear collection. A recent transplant from San Francisco, Rosemary was exploring the possibilities of venturing into a design and retail business in Portland. Her experience working for independent designer, Lemon Twist, gave her the drive to create a start up womenswear apparel line manufactured in the United States.

Photo by Ethan Allen Smith at WeMake Discovery Workshop

Photo by Ethan Allen Smith at WeMake Discovery Workshop

In a matter of two years, PGF transitioned from the original 300 square foot studio to a 1000 square foot retail/work space to now occupying the current 5000 square foot warehouse. In its infancy the owners cut and sewed everything themselves (while holding down night/weekend waitress gigs) and now PGF employs 12 people, has an extensive internship program and an in-house line of womenswear, aptly named HouseLine.

Photo by Ethan Allen Smith at WeMake Discovery Workshop

Photo by Ethan Allen Smith at WeMake Discovery Workshop

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TOKEN‘s founder’s Emrys Berkower and Will Kavesh have a massive workshop on the ground floor of an old factory on the water in Red Hook, Brooklyn where they’re set up to work with glass, metal and wood. They can draw up plans for a chair, for example, and walk into the next room to build it. In other words, it’s a furniture maker’s dream. A few weeks ago they were nice enough to set some time aside from their busy preparations for ICFF to talk about how they grew their studio, what they’re working on now and what makes a good ‘hangover chair.’ Scroll through all the photos below to see a sneak peek of the new pieces they’ll be exhibiting this weekend.

Origins
After Will and Emrys met at Alfred University in the mid 90s, they moved to New York where Emrys settled into the glass blowing community and Will began building furniture for Rogan. When Will needed some help he’d call up Emrys, and the two worked like this, collaborating on lighting and furniture projects until they decided to strike out on their own. They continue to handle Rogan’s Objects line, but after doing custom design-build jobs, beginning with their first gig converting an NYU classroom, they needed their own space and so they made the move out to a spacious studio in Red Hook.

Even though custom jobs for clients took up most of their time, their goal was always to start their own line of furniture. “After two years of prototyping we finally just said, we’re not going to do it unless we just start making it ourselves and building it,” said Emrys. That was in 2009, when they officially began the TOKENnyc product line.

They still take on design-build jobs because, as Emrys explained, “Those custom projects are challenging and inform your own work because you’re problem solving and coming up with different production or manufacturing systems to build something.”
“It’s like still being in school, in a way,” Will added.

Ethos
Will and Emrys describe their designs as promoting purposeful and considered living. “It’s about living with objects that have a real task in mind,” said Will. “TOKEN would never design a really super fluffy down chair or couch that you want to be inside of when you’re recovering from a hangover – we would never design something like that.”
“Although,” Emrys is quick to add, “there’s a place in the world for that. But that’s not what we want to promote. We would promote something that’s more active and engaged.”

Take, for example, the TOKEN Lounge Chair. “If you sit in that chair it’s definitely a relaxed pose,” said Emrys. “It’s definitely a comfortable chair, but you don’t want to curl up and watch a movie in that chair. You feel a relaxed engagement. You might want to read a book and not fall asleep reading it.” That very purposeful aesthetic is evident in all aspects of their work, right down to the joints, which Will describes using the the industry term “work holding, a structural solution that would be used while making something, but we’ve adopted that vocabulary.”

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I met Katrina Vonnegut (yes, she’s related to Kurt) at her textile studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a small space in one of those perpetually cold industrial buildings. After we chatted and I ogled her vintage Brother sewing machine (see pictures), we traversed windy streets lined with faceless warehouses and side-stepped rotting animal carcasses (not joking) as 18-wheelers rumbled by on a nature walk, of sorts, that led us deeper into the heart of Bushwick to the woodworking studio where Brian Kraft, her boyfriend and business parter in the newly sprung furniture partnership Vonnegut/Kraft, works.

Origins

Katrina was Brian’s neighbor before she became his girlfriend and business partner in a design studio that marries Katrina’s background in furniture design as well as her skills as a textile artist with Brian’s experience as a craftsman and builder. Katrina has a degree in furniture design from RISD, where she also studied and worked with textile designer Liz Collins (Watch this Cool Hunting video of her winning first place for her Cradle Chair in the Billes Products International Design Contest in 2008). After she graduated and moved to New York, she worked freelance building sets and making costumes for commercials and music videos. “I had thought I wanted to do that, but it’s such a disposable industry. And it’s such a fast turnaround you can’t control quality as much as you might be able to on a longer project, like a film.”

Oddly enough, Brian majored in literature at NYU. While he was kicking around job ideas post graduation, he began working part-time in a woodworking shop in Bushwick, and it just kind of stuck. Katrina describes him as “a traditional cabinetmaker. I don’t know if he would consider himself a designer, but maybe more recently, since we’ve started to collaborate with one another he would.”

Design Ethos

Though they both worked with furniture for years before teaming up, it’s their collaborative effort that enabled a piece like the Maize bed, a design born out of necessity that has since become their most iconic product, fueling a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $6,000 to fund their booth at ICFF. When Katrina and Brian found themselves in need of a new bed, they saw it as an opportunity to design and build something together.

And it’s not the only time new designs have sprung from a personal need. “I’ve made a few sweaters because I needed one or because I lost my favorite sweater,” Katrina says. “I try and recreate a similar pattern but maybe with new colors. I think those are the best things, because you know that they’re really genuine.”

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