Research: Caveman Furniture
In the blog post regarding developing my ideas class task, I drew a bench inspired by the company 'Caveman furniture'. As evident from the title, this is a company that creates multiple pieces of furniture inspired by cavemen. I will be looking at these before starting my initial ideas to get inspiration.
This was the inspiration behind the bench in my development exercise. What I notice first is how chunky this is. It is very bulky and the wood is very thick. This makes the furniture look old as modern furniture tends to be more delicate and intricate. There are not details or complex shapes.
There are planks of wood connected to each other. Even though I consider the plank shape very fitting with this theme, I do not want to create plank furniture again. I want to gather inspiration from certain elements to create more detailed shapes to make them more modern.
I really like that the colour of the wood is remained untouched. There is no paint to be seen and they leave the natural colours to shine through. Additionally, they created a bench for nature as sitting/ nature is related to cavemen.
This was made out of oak.
The first thing that stood out to me the most in this piece were the rusted legs. I think it is a great touch to add rusted legs as it makes it look old, something which hints to cavemen. It makes it look archaic and an antique.
Pine is again used for this table and there are many cracks on the wood. These imperfections are what makes this piece perfect. It looks like something that has been used multiple times. The company does not want to fix the cracks, the colour of the rust as it makes it more unique and on theme.
I am also definitely considering adding such details to my designs. Cracks, discolouration, natural shade of wood to make it more reminiscent of the product conditions that they possessed.
I really like this piece. They took the concept of the peg and enlarged it to form the table. I think it is great to take inspiration from various objects and then manipulate them to form alternative outcomes. I am definitely interested in looking at different parts of cavemen's life and then using those as inspiration. Some of these may include their tools, bones etc.
This table was made from Pine. It is an ongoing theme for this company to use pine. Pine naturally has variations of colours which creates texture. This texture is beautiful and there is no paint applied to be in the concept of cavemen and the nature. I think that maintaining the original colour of the wood is beautiful and definitely something to consider.
Additionally, the base of the table has a different colour. This suggests that when cavemen created objects out of sticks, there would be discolouration and different shades of colours as they did not care about aesthetics.
I like how this company pays attention to detail.
It really impresses me how bulky these pieces are. Unlike my latest projects where the main theme was conservation of space, this theme will consume a lot of space. I can find clever ways to save space and also introduce people to the chunky and bulky elements.
I really like that the chairs are thick in both height and depth. I like that they are not one plank piece. Instead, there are multiple planks connected together.
The element that stands out to me the most in these shelves is that they are not straight. The company decided to keep the unevenness that trees naturally have. There are uneven bumps or curves that make it look very natural. I really like that they did not sand it down or straighten it as it has a more unique shape.
Conclusion:
A pattern I noticed is that oak and pine are used more frequently in these designs. They use materials that combine properties that will ensure sturdiness, but are also very visually pleasing and fit with the concept. Additionally, they do not use any form of colour. They leave the colour of the wood untouched which makes it resemble the cavemen era. They did not have colour to cover their objects so everything was made out of their natural colour. This is definitely something to consider when I am designing my own.
Further to that, the shapes are all very simple and bulky to resemble more archaic pieces of furniture. There are imperfections such as discolouration and cracks to further hint that these were inspired by a very old era.
I definitely think that this was very useful research. It helped me form some initial ideas in my head. This company also designs necessities. They design basic pieces of furniture that were likely to be designed by cavemen. They focus on necessary items such as tables and chairs.
I am definitely very impressed by these designs and I will refer back to them throughout my initial ideas.
Excellent post - as we discussed in the tutorial, perhaps a different focus in terms of your research adapting it to a contemporary setting would better serve the rest of this project.
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