Conor Hacon, the founding father of Widespread Design, an artwork and design studio based mostly in east London, has at all times been drawn to threat. From leaping into organising a theatre after college, to going again to his bookish roots to check structure, finally it was woodworking that captured his eye for precision and wish for element.
The designer defined to Wallpaper*, ‘Not like with metalwork, you possibly can’t add matter again on to treatment a mistake; it’s important to be extraordinarily delicate to what your supplies are inclined to do.’ Due to this meticulous consideration to element and custom, the younger studio now boasts an archive of furnishings, together with the most recent ‘Hazelnut Assortment’, displaying Hacon’s playful allure and character inside his craft.
Get to know Widespread Design
(Picture credit score: Miguel Souto)
Hacon began out finding out artwork at Goldsmiths in London, and labored alongside artistic influences together with painter Issy Wooden. After dabbling in theatre manufacturing, adopted by finding out structure at The Bartlett College of Structure, he based Widespread Design in 2021.
The identify of the studio is a nod to one in all Hacon’s heroes, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts Motion. He tells Wallpaper*, ‘I might love my work to be considered in that lineage, most significantly due to the enjoyment [Arts and Crafts designers] present in rediscovering the standard methods and processes of the “widespread” craftsmen.’
He swiftly developed his personal signature model, stripping the artistic course of again to fundamentals, working with longstanding conventional timber, and creating furnishings that lasts.
(Picture credit score: Miguel Souto)
Working from his Widespread Design studio, Hacon hand-selects wooden from native timber retailers, rigorously selecting high quality supplies to play with. ‘[I] pay shut consideration to the preliminary visible impression, [but also] the texture, weight and texture,’ he says.
Good design ought to undertaking a presence or character
Conor Hacon, Widespread Design
His furnishings collections, significantly the ‘Hazelnut Assortment’, are made with conventional woodworking methods, together with the usage of drawbore mortise-and-tenon and sliding-dovetail joints. ‘Past the persistence and care utilized to building, I believe my design course of makes the hallmark of my furnishings its humane essence,’ Hacon says. ‘I begin with drawings which might be one-to-one scale, pencil on paper. However as a result of I’m an terrible draughtsman, this results in an economic system of expression within the last designs. I’m at all times serious about the potential of kinds as an natural, artistic course of that takes place between the woodenness of my drawings, and the tendencies of sure supplies to be formed and manipulated.’
(Picture credit score: Miguel Souto)
(Picture credit score: Miguel Souto)
From small trinket boards to easy stools, and polished chairs, furnishings by Widespread Design injects persona into any area, an vital attribute that resonates with Hacon. ‘Good design ought to undertaking a presence or character, and assist modulate the temper of an area,’ he says. ‘In fact, an object that’s constructed to final, utilizing conventional methods, additionally absorbs that means and reminiscence throughout its lifetime – as a present, [a] legacy piece, or a acutely aware funding in how you propose to stay. It turns into “a part of the furnishings” within the sense that it steadily earns its place within the historical past of your individual aesthetic sensibilities, and maybe these of your loved ones.
‘I educated with the structure apply Assemble at College Faculty London, the place one mantra was: “We make the rug, not the picnic”. The concept being that design, whether or not structure or furnishings, ought to assist the messy actuality of on a regular basis life.’
commondesign.co.uk
Supply: Wallpaper
