Our friend and glass historian Megan Greer helped us find some historical examples of production glassware techniques that balance control within a collection while still leaving room for unexpected results. Surprisingly, most of the examples of glassblowing that lie in between mass produced and studio art glass are Scandinavian instead of Italian!
Read MoreA few years back, my partner Chris and I decided to start a business. We’re both designers living in San Francisco, so this idea came as a surprise to no one. But we had difficulty explaining our intentions to friends and colleagues and family, as everyone assumed that we would be building a start-up. It’s San Francisco. It’s the 21st century. You’re building an app, right?
Read MoreMurano is the island about a mile from Venice which has specialized in glassblowing since 1291! Murano is probably the most famous place in the world for handmade glass and I was lucky enough to visit for the first time in August, 2017. We love to expand on ideas from history for contemporary designs, so I thought I would share some of my favorite pieces and techniques, especially the ones that could inspire future work here in California!
Read MoreOne part of the glassblowing process we've come to appreciate more and more is the unexpected. When you make something, especially handmade glass, some small things (or big things) don't go as planned. There can be small bubbles in the glass, ripples in the surface, or differences in thickness. Of course, accidents can be bad, but small irregularities can also be the difference between stale and charming: beauty in the imperfect or Wabi-Sabi.
Read MoreIt's rare to see the process of glassblowing and even more unusual to get to see the it from the artisan's perspective.
Read MoreThe glassblowing is mysterious. To show off the properties that make the material so fun, we documented the entire process of making one object.
Read MoreThis project is an exploration into how chance influences the design process. Instead of carefully composing the pattern for each bowl, we developed a system for randomly selecting and applying colored shards and thin glass strings to the outer layer of the molten glass. It’s a perfect balance between engineering and Japanese Wabi-Sabi.
Read MoreFor our latest project, the Lucky Break drinking glass, we’ve been exploring chance and asking the question, “can we use chance as a tool in the design process?”
Read MoreAt some point during our development of the Saturn Rocks Glass, we realized that we didn't fully understand the why the original Saturn Wine Glasses work as well as they do. For the longest time, we thought it was just the ledge that kept our glass from spilling, but it turns out it is SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. Somewhere around version 5 of the our new rocks glass, we had to fully analyze the physics of our wine glasses, and here's what we found.
Read More“The stretch of time between when you wake up, and when you first interact with some piece of type that someone has drawn, is probably only a couple of seconds.”
-Tobias Frere-Jones, Design Matters, Dec. 2015)
Read MoreHeath ceramics have always been produced by hand which almost seems to be a contradiction. Usually, production refers to mass production: assembly lines, inhuman working conditions, and the sterile uniformity of machine-made goods.
Read MoreWe’ve done a lot of graphic projects in the past, but I’ve only started really studying how typography, fonts, and letters are designed. According to graphic designer, educator, writer, and artist Ellen Lupton, “typography is what language looks like.”
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![[Unedited] Glassblowing in 1st Person](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/594032bedb29d6d978924a07/1497906781762-7C9RVN4VSQFFON6QMU2N/Lucky+Break+%5BUnedited%5D+-+Still2.jpg)
