Hasta La Ideas

This is the fourth post in our interview series with ten influential I.D. curators, retailers and creative directors. Yesterday, we talked to MoMA’s merchandising director, Emmanuel Plat.

Derek Chen credits his Midwestern upbringing with instilling a grounded design perspective. Favoring practicality over flash, Chen cares deeply about the heritage of American design. He founded Council in 2006, both as a creative outlet and a space to explore what defines modern American design. Growing from a loose cadre of designers into a respected manufacturer of contemporary furniture, Council’s collections continue to evolve under Chen’s careful direction. The San Francisco-based company boasts a strong roster of designers, including Arik Levy, Monica Förster, Nendo, Karim Rashid, Mike and Maaike, and One & Co.

How do you find out about new designers?

I do what everybody does: I read the blogs, I walk shows and I talk to people. It’s a pretty small industry. I think that everybody knows somebody who knows everybody, and there really aren’t that many degrees of separation.

To be honest, I don’t read that many blogs. I do read Core77, Dezeen. I also like to look outside of furniture. I think architecture is interesting. The more you look exactly at your target, which in my case would be furniture design, the narrower your view gets. So I’ve trained myself to look outside. I can’t say I’ve found a fashion designer who’s designing furniture for us, but I’m always interested to see what’s happening elsewhere. There’s a certain cultural space that design, music, cars, furniture and all these things inhabit that crosses over.

The people aspect of it is pretty important to me. It’s one of those industries where the nice people generally float to the top. I don’t know if people realize it, but they’re building their resume by interacting with other people in the industry. Word gets around, in a good way. Just being friendly and nice is pretty productive. So the people I meet are generally people who know somebody; there always has to be some sort of a personal connection. I find design that I like and I want to see somebody is committed to design, but I also just want to know that they’ll be good to work with. Generally speaking, it’s not a matter of us getting a design and then making it. There’s quite a lot of back-and-forth. And some people are fun to work with and some people aren’t.

What kinds of design are you looking for at the moment?

I think that as a collection, Council is evolving. It started out pretty tightly curated. A lot of the things we ended up producing were things I feel like I might have designed at some point. What I’m looking for now is stuff that would open my eyes a bit more—specifically, that I wouldn’t do. At the very beginning we had what I’ve called a “new American” curatorial look, and I think that’s still important. It’s important for us as Americans to feel some sort of design identity. We’re still in the stage of development where introducing this country to good design serves all of us. That doesn’t necessarily mean we work with only American designers. It’s time to cast the net a little wider.

There are a lot of designers who design things that I would never design myself. I would put Jamie Hayon in that category. I don’t know quite how to describe it. He uses form and color in a way that I don’t. I tend to be very reductive; I try to design everything down as close as possible to a very simple cube. He doesn’t fear a little ornament; he doesn’t fear form. He’s got a completely different look, and I love that work. We don’t work with him, I don’t know him, I’ve never met him. But I’ve admired him from afar and his work is very different than stuff we’ve done. So I’m looking for the next different thing. I look for design that stretches me a little bit.

Last spring, Council introduced Pila, a line of storage by the Salvadoran designers Claudia & Harry Washington

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