Hasta La Ideas

By Ali Morris

It was during a trip to independent furniture show BKLYN Designs last year that New Yorkers John Neamonitis and Charlie Miner came up with the concept for their new website, WorkOf. Launched in January of this year, WorkOf is an online platform that is helping New York’s thriving designer-maker community to reach consumers while providing consumers with a new way of discovering hard-to-find design. “I was walking around [BKLYN Designs] and there was all of this really amazing work,” says Miner. “I was asking people, ‘Where would I go to buy this stuff? Is there a somewhere where I can find it all in one place?’ and everyone told me it didn’t exist.” Surprised and frustrated by the response they were getting, Neamonitis and Miner set about creating a solution.

WorkOf functions like a collective online storefront for its community, directing traffic to the designers’ websites and online stores. “We launched with 20 makers but have nearly 40 now,” says Miner, reflecting on a very busy five months. While every designer brings his or her own unique style to the table, the pieces are united by a raw, industrial aesthetic that identifies them as handmade in Brooklyn. Industrial brass lighting fixtures come courtesy of Workstead and Allied Maker, while Stefan Rurak’s heavy, reclaimed wood furniture and the blackened steel frames of Vidi Vixi’s pieces are softened by Calico’s ombre wallpapers and Fort Makers’ painterly fabrics.

Although membership of WorkOf is free, applications are carefully considered. Miner explains, “Although we’re certainly open to people approaching us—I mean, that’s what we want to do, to support the community—we also want to be sure that the artists we represent are commercially viable; that they can scale to meet demand and that they can handle customers in a professional way because it reflects on everybody. It’s not a hobbyist platform, it’s not for amateurs.”

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