Hasta La Ideas

This is the first profile in a new series on American design entrepreneurs, looking at how they got where they are, what they do all day, and what advice they have for other designers running their own businesses. We’ll have a new profile every Monday.

To understand the design philosophy of the Eindhoven-based American designer Max Lipsey, watch the making-of video for his latest project, the Temper Chair. Lipsey begins by welding steel to form a clean-lined seat with a curved back. The welds are barely buffed, allowing the bulbous seams to speak of the production process. The chair is then suspended inside an oven where high temperatures unleash the metal’s hidden hues. “Steel has within it these striking colors from straw yellow to red to deep blue, and I thought it made sense to let the color palette come from the material,” Lipsey says.

This is typical of Lipsey’s intuitive design approach, and it was this respect for raw materials and elemental production techniques that first led him to pursue design in Eindhoven. Born in California and raised in Colorado, the 29-year old received a B.A. from New York University in 2005 before entering the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven. The work of Dutch designers like Maarten Baas drew him to the Netherlands. “[Baas’s] Smoke series, where he burned furniture, really blew my mind in terms of how an object could have a sense of wry humor, be a little tongue-in-cheek, but also be poetic and very expressive,” Lipsey says.

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