Strictly speaking, innovation isn’t a requirement of outdoor furniture. There are plenty of terrible benches and tables and streetlights in the world. However, when people actively choose to innovate, great things can happen. Landscape Forms is a furniture manufacturer that is astoundingly focused on design thinking. They design outdoor furniture, and you’ve probably seen their work around corporate or college campuses, or in a outdoor public space. I had the chance to visit their offices and factory this past Friday, and here’s what I saw.
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| I like the curves happening here. |
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| These benches were consistant with some of their other pieces, using this kind of curve and twist with metal. |
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| This uses that same sort of twist, and these lights look really, really good. These are “Lo-Glo” and they also make a larger version called “Hi-Glo” |
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| This is larger one, Hi-Glo. |
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| I’d always wondered how the woven benches came together, and now I know. The metal pieces are bent in advance, which makes them very weave-able. |
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| They had a really big powder-coating room, and these benches were headed there. |
When I visited, story was a huge part of what they talked about. It’s important to have a story behind a brand, to have a story behind a product. It reminds me a lot of what Herman Miller does with the Aeron chair. They talk a lot about the process and the research that went into it, how it’s the first office chair without upholstery, etc, and that makes the chair more marketable. The people I talked to emphasized brand as a part of that, in that your brand is a promise, and your product is the fulfillment of that promise. That’s something that I’d be interested in learning more about, how brands form and maintain their image.
Their design process was also interesting to me, probably because their market research consists of sending their representatives out to design firms and asking their customers “Is this product that we have sketches of something that you would want?” which is very direct research, super cool. They also go to public spaces and watch people move and interact, which is a great research, and also contributes to their story about a product.
Thank you, Landscape Forms, for letting me visit and see what you’re up to.