Ep. 125: Furniture & Product Design Studio Bower & Clever Reflection Contest!
Danny Giannella, Tammer Hijazi and Jeffrey Renz are the trio behind Bower, a contemporary furniture and product design studio. With a focus on mirrors, they explore perceptions of depth, light and self. Through a free–thinking, experimental process, Bower aims to bring unexpected objects and environments into people's lives, with reflections taking center stage. They believe the mirror is the everyday object most closely related to our consciousness. Plus, we launched a contest to celebrate Bower’s collaboration with West Elm, available now. Scroll down for details or visit the contest page here.
Read the full transcript here.
Amy Devers: Hi it’s Amy, before I start the show, I want to tell you about something I’m really excited about. We teamed up with Bower Studios, who you’ll hear from this episode, and West Elm for a Clever reflection contest. Grand prize is a custom, one-of-a-kind mirror from Bower Studios, plus a $250 gift card to West Elm. And second prize is another $250 gift card to West Elm. A reflection can be physical, like mirror, or abstract, like a thought. So to enter, we’re asking you to create a short video that showcases a reflection visually, while you share a personal reflection verbally. Post your video to instagram with #cleverreflecitonpodcast and tag @cleverpodcast @westelm and @bowerstudios. The last day to enter is August 18. For the full contest details and official rules, visit cleverpodcast.com/reflectionpodcast.
Danny Gianella: Something comes in into our work every once in a while as kind of throwing in an element of surprise. Like, kind of like a little hint of something that feels a little magical or unexpected.
AD: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers and this is Clever. Today I’m talking to Danny Gianella, Tammer Hijazi and Jeffrey Renz. Together, the three of them are Bower, a New York City-based studio with a multidisciplinary approach to contemporary furniture and product design. With a focus on mirrors, they explore perceptions of depth, light, and self. Through a free-thinking experimental process, Bower aims to bring unexpected objects and environments into people's lives, with reflections taking center stage. They believe of all the things we surround ourselves with every day, the mirror is most closely related to our consciousness, a humble technology for understanding ourselves. This defining spirit of discovery is present throughout their collections and is passed on to those that engage with their design. So let’s hear from Danny, Tammer, and Jeffrey.
DG: I’m Danny Giannella, I’m the creative director/design director of Bower Studios. Bower Studios is a contemporary furniture design studio where we design and make a range of products from furniture, lighting, home accessories, but with the focus on mirrors, that’s our concentration. I think it’s just a general idea of dreaming up an idea and trying to make it a reality and having fun along the way and trial and error and getting better and better at it. But yeah, just a general coming up with a thought and making it a reality.
Tammer Hijazi: This is Tammer from Bower Studios. I am also; I wear the hat of design/creative director alongside Danny. And why I’m compelled to do what I do with Bower, I would say is, aside from the love of art and design, I definitely have ADD and it, you know, I have that creative itch to get, you know, make things. So the process of design/make. I’m definitely a hands-on person.
Jeffrey Renz: I am Jeffrey Renz. I am the sales and development director. As with Danny and Tammer, you know, we all kind of wear a lot of hats and do a little bit of everything. I’m more on the business side of things, so for the most part, I guess you could say sales, logistics, strategy, financial stuff, partnerships. I get to play a little bit on the creative side as well with photography, marketing, sourcing, occasionally a design project. I guess what drives me is that at heart I’m a bit of a brand builder. I get energized by just being able to like push things forward and make things better and grow the business. I can be stubborn and not very easily content. So this kind of motivates me just to keep going. I really believe in the work that we do, the products that we make or the services that we provide. It’s more than just a kind of company or a product to me. So just feels natural and automatic to fight for the business or for the growth, wherever we see an opportunity.
AD: Wow, well that does sound like a really balanced and dynamic trio [laughs]. Before we get to the trifecta of awesome that you have become as Bower Studios, can we go back to pre-Bower times and learn a little bit about you individually? Like what was the sort of path of your life before you got to Bower?
DG: This is Danny. For me it kind of started in high school. I was fortunate enough to go to this art school every afternoon during high school, like from 1:00 until 4:00 and just was exposed to all kinds of visual arts, drawing, painting, sculpture, video, photography, it was like art school, but at a pretty young age. So it was definitely formative for me and kind of a time where I identified myself as an artist. You know, in your teens you’re kind of looking for identity, so I really hung onto that and that’s kind of who I became.
And there was a college visitation trip, junior year, where we all got on a bus and hopped around different art schools and we stopped by RISD and that was the day I learned about design. And I was super interested in it and pretty relieved, to be honest, because something I struggled with at the time with art was, I always enjoyed learning about the techniques but never really knew what to draw or paint or sculpt. I didn’t really feel like I had anything to say.
So it felt like design was very grounding in that way. It was just, it was just a very practical, it had very practical parameters, you design a functional object and then within that I had space to release my creativity. So it just felt really like a good fit for me. And yeah, then I ended up going to RISD and studied industrial design there. I was pretty drawn to, similar to Tammer, I’m pretty hands-on and drawn to the studios mostly furniture studios. I spent a lot of time in the wood shop and the reason I was into those is because I could see an idea through to the end.
And have the final object that I could look at and use and critique first-hand –
AD: And sit on and live with and –
DG: Yeah.
AD: No, I’m the same way. I studied furniture design at RISD too and I also needed the sort of practical parameters in order to give myself permission to express my creativity. But then I really appreciated taking something from abstract to tangible, from theoretical and hypothetical to real [laughs]. And the materiality of it and the physics of it and everything is, is only really understandable when it becomes real.
DG: It was a pretty big contrast to some of the other classes where you’re designing gadgets and you end up with a computer rendering or a Styrofoam model. There’s just like a, it’s not as intimate of a connection to material and usage. So yeah, so that’s pretty much how I got into furniture, was just because I could make it at RISD. And so after graduating I ended up working in the wood shop as a fabricator for Uhuru Design, which is a furniture design build studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
And that was fun, it was a bunch of guys, mostly from RISD actually, and it’s really where I refined my craft as a woodworker, got more of an intimate knowledge of just woodworking and fabricating in general. They had pretty high standards compared to school [laughs]. I was on the hook for making things nice and that’s actually where I met Tammer. He joined the production team there about a year after I started.
And yeah, we worked alongside each other. We hung out after work, we became friends and yeah, Tammer is like a very, a very sociable guy [laughs]. Yeah, he was really good at meeting people and started getting like these side projects outside of work. And needed an extra hand here and there, so he would ask me for help and so it was kind of how we started working just the two of us, outside of our jobs.
And yeah, that’s kind of how our like business partnership originated, I guess, was just from working together and then a little bit outside of working hours.
AD: Nice, Tammer, do you backtrack to your pre-Bower story and then confirm or deny what Danny’s accused you of?
TH: For me I would say, I had a mentor growing up. He was a family friend, he was actually my older brother’s best friend and he had gone to school for fashion design and I just always admired him. His style, everything, and even in high school the classes I took were, I took fashion, there was a fashion class in high school. I took that class, I was like one of two guys in there.
There was also a shop class in my high school, I took that, but I didn’t really, I don’t know why I took that, I think that was mandatory [laughter]. Anyway, yeah, eventually he went off to Paris and London and I hadn’t heard from him in so long and my parents split up at a certain point. I end up moving to Gainesville, Florida and I’m in high school there finishing up. And I go to school pretty much all of a sudden Tony, this friend of mine, mentor, reaches out to me saying he has these projects he’s working on, not related to fashion.
And he asked me for help and I was like, of course, yes, I’ll be there. And he’s in DC and I fly back and from there he kind of opened this door to like, that I just never thought I would be this creative person until like he pushed me. I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought about it until today, your questions [laughter and cross talking].
I don’t think Danny even knows this [laughter], that’s what I’m saying –
DG: Who are you and also where is Tony now?
TH: Tony is still in DC and basically he’s left the life of fashion. I learned a lot from him and eventually I went back to Gainesville, starting doing my own little projects and furniture and he, so yeah, I learned furniture and interior design with him, interior architecture. And so I like did some build outs and bars in Gainesville and like looking back, it’s very kitschy and small town looking.
AD: Yeah, but you got to get that stuff out of your system so that you can graduate to a more sophisticated thing, otherwise you’d be getting it out of your system now and that would be bad –
TH: Right, right. But from there I was kind of over being in Gainesville and knew I wanted to be in the field of furniture, somehow. So I, I saw Uhuru, I saw their website and was just like, admired their work at the time, considering I was doing a lot of reclaimed stuff and so I got to New York and after about three or four months there I finally got a job with Uhuru.
AD: So you guys met at Uhuru and sort of bonded on the shop floor, but then started doing some side jobs together and really enjoyed your collaborative dynamic and those side jobs you decided to sort of formalize that into your own studio, is that the gist?
TH: I mean even before that. We would just, pretty much take on any little job, just like, even if it was like, I need a new cabinet next to my dishwasher, we’d be like, okay [laughs]. But one day I was on a train and I met, I don’t know, there’s some confusion with the train and I met the owner of this bar’s, the bar owners wife on the train and she just told me what she did and I told her what I did and then she’s like, oh, my husband is opening a bar and actually needs someone.
I was like oh, here’s my number. So that was the start of the biggest project we had done pre-Bower.
DG: Yeah, it was kind of, it, it’s kind of crazy thinking back because we our, our bosses at Uhuru were nice enough to let all the employees, it was kind of a perk of working there, was that you could use the shop after hours for your own personal projects. But you know, that was, it was an unspoken thing, but I guess it was like, you know, within reason. And you know, for like making a little bookcase or whatever, little projects and yeah, little did they know that we were doing this full-on bar build-out [laughs] on nights and weekends.
And we spent; I think it was like almost a full summer working on that, off hours and it was a pretty big project for us. It was the first time we had anything of that scope and when they opened, naturally people, customers were asking who built it out, who were the wood workers because there were some elements in there that kind of stood out, some like live edge slab bar and just some other interesting, like reclaimed details.
Again, there was sort of this, the vibe of what we worked on at Uhuru, which was why, one reason they were interested in having us build it. Um, but yeah, from that came a lot of little jobs that were for people, like custom furniture build-ins and we were so into that. We were like, oh, this is how you work for yourself. You know, people come to you with something they want and you make it and you try to make it in a way that you like it and you’re proud of it and then you just, it snowballs from there.
But we very quickly learned that you know, the challenges of trying to satisfy clients who don’t exactly know what they want [laughter] –
AD: That’s the hardest part! They don’t want it until you’ve designed it.
DG: Yeah, and you’re young and you’re starting out and you want to please them and you want the work, so you’re just trying to make it work. And sometimes you know, 300 emails later, you haven’t seen a dollar and you’re like, wait a minute, what are we doing here? Like what they actually want is this thing that we would never wanna even like photograph or show anybody. So [laughs] –
AD: Right!
DG: That was a really good lesson and in hindsight I’m sure there’s, well, there are smarter ways of going about that kind of business, we just didn’t know how. The takeaway from that experience was you know what, if we just design our own furniture, it would just be so clean, like take it or leave. Like that’s, if, imagine if that’s how the business worked? So we were very excited about – It sounds so obvious but it, you know, that kind of work takes a lot of upfront investment. Like no one is throwing you money to dream up some ideas, right. So we sort of had to force ourselves into it by applying for a trade show that we got into and then we’re like, okay, we have a real deadline, we, we’re actually paying to be in this and so the pressure is on. So it’s kind of how we decided to design our own stuff and then we, yeah, it all came from there.
AD: Well, that sounds like a lovely romance [laughter].
JR: Yeah, this is Jeffrey, I was just gonna say, I’m really glad I got to participate in this podcast so I could hear this love story [laughter]. This is more depth than I’ve heard in a long time!
AD: And then are you brought into the fold Jeffrey or do you feel like a third wheel as they gaze across the table saw –
JR: It depends on the day you know, it depends what movie’s on, if it’s funny or if it’s romantic! [Laughs]
AD: Let’s hear your back story Jeffrey.
JR: I guess I have to start in Lakeland, Florida; it’s where I grew up. it’s a pretty small city, maybe 100,000 people in the middle of the state. It’s a great place, but I was ready to go, so I ended up going to the College of Charleston in South Carolina. I was a little bit lost, but I knew that I wanted to do something in business, so I studied that there and I didn’t have much exposure to the creative world at that time and it wasn’t really on my radar or a priority for me.
I kind of thought that, you know, I would dream up some invention or trade stocks on the beach and that was like a real possibility for me. Obviously that’s not the case [laughs]. But I eventually moved to New York and just kind of bounced around a little bit. I took a bunch of different jobs, working in marketing and logistics, and eventually I went furniture shopping with my sister, who was shopping for her apartment, I was kind of helping her pick some things and was like a vintage, antique furniture store, pretty small company.
And kind of became friends with the staff there and I think it was two days later I had an interview and the next day I started and that’s where I was kind of introduced to the world of furniture and design. And thankfully I was able to kind of use my business education, not so much my background, but education into that. So you know, working on marketing and sales and getting to do some photography stuff there.
So that was a pretty big deal for me. I think that shaped me a lot. So I ended up kind of bouncing down the road and doing some more photography jobs and ended up working with a set design studio which, at the time, I thought was like, that was it for me. I totally loved it, it was amazing but after a while I kind of realized that it’s just so temporary. We build this like impressive, amazing set and it’s completely destroyed 24 hours later.
AD: Yeah, I’ve done some work like that too, it’s kind of heart-breaking.
JR: Yeah, it’s tough, it’s tough. I mean it’s really fun and the whole production aspect of is so motivating and inspiring, but in the end it just gets torn down and it’s gone. So, I kind of, found myself being more interested in objects and pieces, Sight Unseen, Offsite site earlier, so that’s where I found Bower. I think it was their first show ever down in Soho.
And went with some friends and just kinda was hanging out in the Bower booth for a while and nobody was there, by the way, it was completely empty [laughs] and I was like, these guys need some help, obviously [laughter]. But no, it was amazing and I loved the work, I thought it was so fresh and just felt like the potential. I didn’t know their story, but it just seemed like there was so much room to grow, just by what I was seeing.
So I emailed them, I think it took a while and then we reconnected a while later, had a drink and I started working with them. And that was, I don’t know what year that was, maybe 2015, something like that.
AD: Hmm, so the first date went well.
JR: The first date did go well, yeah [laughs], I think so.
AD: Did you join the team right away and then you, did you like, did you have to create your own role essentially?
JR: Pretty much, yeah, I guess you could say that. It was Danny, Tammer, I think one more person and myself, right, at that time. We had some workshop space but we were essentially, you know, operating the office out of a closet, give or take. But yeah, I think the role kind of created itself. I mean I think I had an idea of what it might become but it didn’t really exist, like I didn’t step into it immediately.
AD: But you had a sense of what you could offer –
JR: I think so. I mean they’re both such creative guys and I think for me to come in with a little bit of a different mindset where I’m like wait, where’s your excel spreadsheet, you know? I think that was kind of helpful for them at the same time!
AD: [Laughs] Probably. Were you guys grateful that somebody was gonna sort of keep things on track?
DG: Yeah.
TH: For sure.
DG: We definitely felt like we weren’t ready for a Jeffrey in our relationship [laughs] but we knew that we needed a little more balance, or maybe a lot more balance in our business to have it grow. But yeah, he just eased into it really naturally and yeah, I think it really helped us grow faster and better.
AD: Well, I know I’ve heard this from a lot of people and I can admit it’s the same for me, when the admin and the monetization and the worry about all the marketing and business stuff starts to mount, I feel less creative and overwhelmed. So having somebody to sort of wrap their brain around that and be the lead on that, would seem to me like it would free you two up to have more fun with the product design.
DG: Yeah, it’s something we still try to manage to this day, as just trying to find ways to keep everybody in their sweet spot, so that they can do what they’re best at and enjoy the most. And of course we, as said before, we share a lot of hats and do a lot of different roles, but yeah, I think that helps a lot, is having more help to keep you in your sweet spot.
JR: We’re a pretty loose bunch, when Danny and Tammer were like, we want to make this seven foot fountain, you could imagine the expression on my face [laughter]. But it was great in the end, we’re pretty loose on some things [laughter].
AD: I wanna know the naming story, cause none of you are named Bower, so where did that come from? [Laughter]
TH: The naming started, this is Tammer, obviously pre-Bower, we went through, we went months of trying to figure out a good name, the lists went on. We would spend weeks just coming up with silly names, just for fun, just to laugh at and then thought we had something. But just, it’s definitely one of the most difficult things. Probably same as naming your own child, but maybe not the same as naming your own child [laughter].
But Danny one day, after all this, came in and had just watched Planet Earth or something and David Attenborough had revealed the Bowerbird to him.
DG: I don’t know if we still, we used to have a link of this video on our website, I don’t know if it’s still there, on the ‘about’ page. But –
David Attenborough: “He puts these treasures on display within and around a construction that has taken him years to build.”
DG: Yeah, it’s this bird that creates these elaborate structures and decorates them with like colorful displays of found objects around the forest and some of them are like perfectly color coded, even though they’re a mix of like berries and flowers and trash. It’s like the same exact tone of blue and it was just fascinating.
Early on our first collection of work incorporated some really bright saturated colors, so it felt like… Also, when we were thinking up names, literally everything you look at you’re like, uh, spoon, uh, soap, you’re just like, could that be a name and like start combining names. So it was definitely in my mind, like looking for a name. But it felt like a nice tie-in and also Bower, the word ‘Bower’ the birds namesake is, it means home and it’s named after the home that it constructs. So that also makes a lot of sense cause we make home objects. So that’s the story of the Bowerbird, yeah.
AD: And is this a mating ritual?
TH: It sure is! [Laughter]
AD: Is it the male or the female of the species that makes these elaborate designs?
JR: It’s the male.
AD: Yeah, so this does line up perfectly [laughter]. Have you guys found your mates since you started making mirrors?
TH: I found a mate.
AD: Okay.
DG: Still building my Bower [laughter].
AD: Now that you guys have been in business for a while and you have collections, you have furniture, mirrors are your specialty, but you do seven foot fountains and custom and collaborations. There’s a DNA of the brand, there’s a cohesiveness, but I love that you’ve also, like not limited yourself to specific silos of product types. How would you describe some of those throughlines? Like how would you describe the DNA of the brand?
DG: Something we are naturally drawn to is just like very simple shapes and combinations of shapes and I think it’s, maybe something not only that we’re attracted to, but we just feel like, it’s just like a human, like a natural, people just are attracted to simple forms. And so that’s something, in just kind of our aesthetic language, that’s pretty consistent, that just naturally comes out. And then other than that, something we don’t always do, but comes into our work every once in a while is kind of throwing in, like an element of surprise. Like kind of like a little hint of something that feels a little bit magical or unexpected. Early on we worked with like really high powered magnets and we used them for a few different products to create things that float. There was a chandelier that looked like it was floating in space because it was being held up this magnetic force and you just couldn’t visually see what the hell was going on.
And it was just like a hit, like when we’re showing it in a few shows, people look like children, like playing with it and looking at it. So I think that was kind of a really, early on, like an amazing thing to see people’s reaction to these unexpected things and not quite understanding how they worked. But the form, like from a distance or at first glance, feels familiar enough to, you kind of like let down your guard and it’s almost like a set-up and then you kind of hit them with some kind of little surprise. So -
AD: I would say the marble melt chair is like that too, in that –
DG: Totally.
AD: Marble is, just for our listeners, it’s, it’s sort of stretched out like a sheet of taffy and then draped over a brass form in a way that’s so unexpected for marble, which is typically only in slabs and plainer execution. So it’s got this weight, but this fluidity to it that is, like you can’t take your eyes off it.
DG: Yeah, that’s, that’s a perfect example of kind of the latest piece and actually collection, which hasn’t been released yet. Yeah, that melting marble [laughs], just playing with kind of, you know, expectations of materials and kind of twisting them around and having people be like, how the hell, how is that happening? [Laughs]
TH: There’s an element of humour to it too. I think there’s definitely the surprise element, but I think there’s almost like a serious humour, like our most popular product is the archway mirror and it’s like you know, a somewhat elegant, delicate, fragile, yet huge piece but at the same time you know, you can have a lot of fun with it and it can surprise you and it can be kind of fun or funny. Like in some ways we’ve displayed it in the past where it’s like an infinite hallway that is a little mesmerizing or something like that.
AD: It’s a nice way to challenge assumptions and help people do a double take and also when you don’t take it too seriously yourself, that’s infectious. Like people who are drawn to it, are reminded not to take things too seriously, right, it helps to brighten, brighten their life.
TH: Yeah, definitely.
AD: Sometimes, sometimes you get yourself in way too deep and you have to learn on the fly and it’s sort of horrible while it’s happening but can still end up in magnificent success or sometimes you get yourself into a project where you know, there are happy accidents or unforeseen positive outcomes. Is there one in there that you feel like you really grew from in terms of those challenges and/or unexpected positives?
DG: There’s a couple of good examples. One, that I haven’t thought about in a while, I think I forced myself to forget. When you said terrifying or horrible, or whatever the word was [laughter], I remembered Tammer was definitely there, I don’t know if Jeffrey saw the worst of it, but when we did design this fountain, it was part of this collection for Collective Design, through Sight Unseen actually.
They had, they were our representation, so we were part of their booth there and it was our first time being part of this kind of like gallery furniture world. So we really felt like we had to step it up and just like, you know, I don’t know, just take it to the next level. So we decided to have this fountain that was running water and pumping water through a cycle of chambers in this pristine, beautiful gallery space.
And you know, it might surprise you but we don’t, we don’t have experience working with like hydro dynamics or whatever it’s called. We kind of worked, we worked it out, you know, in the studio, we brought it over and then when we turned it on the thing starts flowing up, like higher and higher and higher and it wasn’t sucking the water out of the bottom chamber fast enough to keep all the levels equal.
It’s hard to describe but it was essentially -
TH: It was the flow rate.
DG: Yeah, the flow rate was faster than the suck rate, if that [laughter] –
TH: That’s physics.
DG: That’s our level of physics, but you know, we love a challenge and so it’s, I think the show was about to open, in like 10 minutes, like there was a line out the building and it’s literally overflowing and we’re like getting towels and I don’t think, yeah, we had moving blankets that we had unwrapped the other pieces from and we’re just like, I think what ended up happening is we unplugged it and Tammer like ran to the hardware store and bought like some kind of plumbers putty and MacGyvered it and miraculously, like I usually don’t believe in miracles but that was a miracle.
Turned on and worked like a charm and no one saw the puddles and we might, we must have looked like we’d seen a ghost [laughs] but it worked out in the end. But that was a scary day.
AD: What’s the takeaway –
TH: Don’t make a, don’t test your fountain –
AD: At the trade –
TH: Five minutes before the show [laughter].
DG: Very relatable takeaway, for everyone listening out there, yeah. [Laughter]
JR: I told you about the fountain! [Laughter]
AD: I love that there’s a voice of reason, but I also love when a MacGyver story has to happen, there’s, I mean that’s frequently part of it, is you think you’ve got everything dialled in and then you need to somehow come up with a modified, on the fly solution and that’s when you know your brain’s really working. So, how would you say the relationship between the three of you and the studio, in terms of the business and the work you’re doing, how has it evolved over the years and what direction is it evolving into?
DG: It’s been a pretty organic process. It’s sort of like a stream of consciousness where we’re informed by our previous work, but inspired by new things. Like we definitely, after a few collections have created a language that just feels like Bower. And so it’s pretty quick for us to recognize if something fits into our DNA or not and at this point it comes pretty naturally to us, we don’t really have to question it too much.
That being said, we don’t really like getting too comfortable with what we know, like we could just keep cranking out, like the same mirrors and probably be okay for a little while, but if it gets boring for us, it probably gets boring for our audience. Like I think it’s kind of a contagious spirit that, like if you’re having fun with it, if you’re challenging yourself, I think it comes through in the products and objects. So it’s a great motivation to just keep pushing ourselves with fresh new ideas and still have it feel like it makes sense in our body of work.
AD: Would you characterize yourselves as just curious experimenters or lifelong learners, is that why you wanna… Obviously keeping things fresh, there’s a lot of good sound logic for that. But it also can sometimes be hard, especially when you have a few hit products that could easily keep the lights on for a while.
JR: Yeah, I think, this is Jeffrey, like I definitely think we have to, at the same time; keep in mind the reality of running a growing business and having employees and doing the best we can in terms of that. I think in terms of evolution, we’ve become more professional and become better at kind of navigating the industry. We have to plan more, which can be a little boring, but we also have to keep space for that freedom, it’s kind of what we talked about earlier, that balancing act and our sweet spots.
I think we are a pretty ambitious bunch, sometimes good, sometimes not so good and we have, you know, crazy ideas and crazy goals that seem impossible. We probably wouldn’t want to share them here, just in case, but you know, it’s also a loose trajectory, I would say, that we’re kind of dreamers who are also good at executing. And that, it just evolves and changes over time, but it seems to be working, so we’re continuing that.
AD: So I want to get into your creative process because I love to hear the dynamics of collaboration. I think it’s fascinating, across all different kinds of creative disciplines. So, when the three of you get together to embark on a project or maybe you land a client or maybe there’s an idea that one of you is pushing, what’s the flow? Like how do you work through the fuzzy phase where everything is just figments and fragments into focusing it into an idea and then developing like a recipe for execution. What does that look like between the three of you?
DG: Tammer and I, we thrive in the fuzzy phase. And we kind of consistently don’t hold back, even though we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times because of that. But we honor the freedom of just dreaming in the beginning. And over time we’ve gotten smart about what’s possible, what’s not possible, so that’s kind of always in the backs of our minds.
But we always start off very open and we try not to be too safe in the beginning, even if it feels like a pretty straightforward brief, we try to get the client, try and get their attention a little bit at first, like surprise them with some stuff. Yeah and then we have a very open democratic culture in the office and the studio. Everybody can look at what we’re working on, can have a say.
We throw out ideas that we’re not even sure are good because someone else might hear something good in the ideas or see something in a sketch that’s actually better than what was intended originally. So we have a very open kind of ideation process. And it’s not until we, something kind of like strikes us on like both an emotional and a sort of functional level that, and it’s pretty obvious what it does.
That we start kind of honing more into that direction and iterate and just kind of refine and execute.
AD: Do you feel kind of a palpable crescendo as this is happening, when everybody is kind of aligning with the direction and you’re feeling excited?
DG: Yeah [laughter].
JR: I think what Danny said is right on. You just know it when it happens. I think the conversation gets more serious, Tammer definitely will always jump in. He always wants to like fix things and make things, so he’s like, all right, so are we calling first and like you know, when you get to that point you kind of know you’re on the beginning of something there.
TH: I definitely jump the gun [laughs] and like, that’s a cool idea, let’s do it! And then you wait for Jeffrey’s reaction [laughter], you look at his face, like okay, all right [laughter].
JR: Yeah, some of our tails wag faster than others at first [laughter].
AD: Who is the voice of reason? Who is the cautious one?
JR: I’m not gonna answer that!
DG: Jeffrey, for sure.
TH: If we didn’t have that, who knows if we’d be alive right now [laughter].
AD: Right [laughter], right, it’s not a bad thing, it’s a balancing thing.
DG: Yeah!
JR: Plus it’s two against one, so I have to kind of pull that side of the board [laughter].
AD: I’ve read your statements and you’ve said that your pieces are a way to connect with your audience. And I mean we already know that you’re arranging things in order to attract a mate, but other than that, what are your intentions for that relationship, if you’re gonna, with the audience?
DG: I think that we, the way I was describing our general aesthetic, I think keeps things really open in terms of, there’s no specific historical or stylistic references. You don’t need to be an educated designer to appreciate our work. So we try to keep things pretty, like simple and universal, but still sophisticated in the details and how they’re crafted. So I think that allows for a larger audience, a more diverse audience to kind of understand and appreciate our work.
There are opportunities, which would happen now for a second time, with West Elm specifically, where we have the opportunity to access a larger audience. So we just finished a collaboration with them, for the second time, like I said, and yeah, that process was, we’re out of our comfort zone because as a small high end design studio we’re used to kind of having a vision and not really having to worry about producing things at scale, like at large volumes.
So in that way there’s more things that are sort of possible but it’s also more costly. And therefore your audience kind of gets smaller, or people that can afford to buy your pieces. It’s a great exercise working with a team like that. Like they’re such experts at what corners we can cut, what corners we can’t. They have a very specific target price and the deadlines are real and so we’re working within constraints that we’re not used to. But the great thing at the end of the day is, you know, the pieces are much more accessible. Like my friends can buy them and it just opens up the exposure to a lot more people, so it’s gratifying in that way as well.
AD: Yeah, that’s exciting and it gives you enough experience at that scale that you can, you know your way around it. Tell me about the products that you collaborated with West Elm on?
DG: We designed some lighting and some furniture and accessories and they have a few common themes that tie them together. Some like repeated shapes and patterns, they definitely have the Bower DNA within them. Yeah, so it’s kind of a nice little range of products.
AD: I have to say that I appreciate when a company like West Elm collaborates with a studio like Bower to help reach a larger audience. I think everybody wins in those situations. Hopefully, obviously if it’s a productive collaboration, but that way more people get to experience your work and know who you are. You get to connect with a larger audience and West Elm gets to, I would say, you know, there’s some cachet to being a taste maker and working with independent studios, but there’s also a real ethics behind it, as opposed to just following trends but actually wanting to support the people who are setting the trends, by working together. I like that.
JR: Yeah, I would agree with that.
AD: We can’t really have a conversation now without acknowledging the time that we’re in, global pandemic, obviously, which has made us all really reckon with, I think, ourselves, our systems, definitely our homes because we’ve been spending so much time in them. But we’re also facing financial crisis and enormous systemic injustice that needs to be rectified. Hopefully, it’s a time of growth and change, but there’s a lot of turbulence in the moment. And I think a lot of people are cracking themselves open and kind of sorting through what to keep and what to jettison and crystalizing priorities. So I wonder if you guys would share with me, I don’t know, a reflection on these times or on something you’re thinking about for yourself, or the world, or the future, or anything.
DG: One thing that I find kind of beautiful about this time, even though it’s it’s hard to find beauty in so much disaster and pain, but the fact that so much of it is, you can’t ignore and we’re all being affected by it, and I know this has been said a lot already, but it really is an amazing thing for everyone to feel like they’re kind of in something together.
And it feels like cultures are sort of, like dissolve away, it just feels like we’re in this human race that’s going through something and of course there’s a million problems with how we’re going about it, but I think there’s a sort of sense of unity that’s really beautiful and that I hope we kind of capture in the right ways and don’t forget that, just don’t go back to how things used to be and really like take something positive out of it. And yeah, reflecting more inwardly than we ever have.
Before it felt like, you know, with all the systemic issues that are coming to the forefront, like everyone was sort of aware of it, but like, unless it’s affecting your day-to-day or unless you’re clearly doing something to wrong someone else, you kind of coast along. It’s like, it’s sort of like you’re living in this matrix and you know there’s all these invisible forces around you, but now everyone is kind of being forced to look at their role within these structures and systems because everyone has one. Whether you know it or not, whether you want to be part of it or not, you are. And so I think that’s kind of a unique thing that everyone is having to confront within themselves and ask themselves what they’re gonna do about it. Sometimes it takes a lot of hard, painful truths to create something good. So I’m being optimistic [laughter].
AD: I love it and I totally agree with that. I think bones have sort of been broken and healed poorly and you have to break them and reset them in order for them to heal right.
DG: And hopefully they heal stronger than, than they were before, yeah.
AD: Yeah, less compromised.
TH: It’s definitely an emotional feeling around all of it and to go into depth with it would be a little difficult. But definitely goes beyond racial equality, I mean the whole world is kind of F’d [laughs]. Figuring out how to fix it, as everyone is saying, learning-learning-learning, and it’s true, but that takes a lot of time and trying to fix it quickly through social, like acting now, you’ve got to obviously continue to do that.
AD: Agreed, I feel like kind of what Danny was alluding to is this moment of uniting and deciding that we’re all going to evolve and we have to be on board with that and in what you’re saying is, it’s not gonna happen, well, it does, it happens in many small actions, but those actions have to be consistent and aligned with your intentions over time in order for that change to really take hold and get momentum and traction and grow.
DG: And it is amazing to see how quickly some things have changed, just from people showing up in the streets, like that’s new to me. I didn’t know that that could happen before, three months ago. Things that usually would take years and years to change, have been taking weeks. So it can work.
AD: Yes, yes, everything moves faster, hopefully, and yeah, I just hope we don’t have too much whiplash, like the pendulum swinging too violently back and forth.
JR: I guess I would just say, for me personally, I think the situation, whether it’s the pandemic or the push for racial equality or the economy or any of that, it’s all kind of come together, at least it seems like all at once, even though a lot of it has been going on for a long time. For me it’s just kind of forced me to think about my life a little more simply, and a little more slowly.
About kind of what matters most to me and I think it may have something to do with the fact that my wife and I just had our first child, but taking a step back and just thinking about family and friends and the general community that we live in and health and happiness and these basic things. I feel like when they’re at the top of the priority list, it helps to bring out kind of an empathy and equality, an inclusion into society and I hope that this crazy period kind of brings us, you know, that way, instead of the whiplash that you kind of mentioned.
AD: I hope for that too. I think it’s possible. I agree with you, I think a lot of people are thinking about their life in those terms. I know for me, community has emerged as an absolute priority and it wasn’t before cause I guess I always thought it would just happen and now I realize I have to invest wholeheartedly in the community that I want to be a part of.
DG: Definitely, and I think, you know, a lot of us are still learning what that means or how to invest in a community. And you know, maybe this is the beginning of that for some people, but if you put your heart into it and you spend some time thinking through it, everybody will be better off a few months from now or a few years from now.
AD: Before I let you go, and thank you so much for sharing your story and your studio and those really powerful words with us. I always do like to give our listeners something to look for in terms of a project or something that’s in the pipeline. I know you mentioned West Elm, so do you have a launch?
JR: Yeah, it is launching in early August, the third. So look out for it. And yeah. And we also, we have our own collection as well which is an expansion of that Melt chair that we talked about earlier, the melting marble chair, we now have a full collection based on that, that launches in the fall.
AD: Thank you so much. I really liked hearing about how you all met, the dynamic that you formed, where you’re going with your work and how the collaborations come together. Thank you for listening! Remember to go to Cleverpodcast.com/reflection-contest for all the details and to enter the contest. To see images of Bower’s work, click the link in the details of this episode on your podcast app, or go to Cleverpodcast.com where you can also sign up for our newsletter. Subscribe to Clever on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you would please do us a favor and rate and review, it really does help us out. We also love when you reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you can find us at Clever Podcast and you can find me at Amy Devers. Clever is produced by 2VDE Media with editing by Rich Stroffolin and music by El Ten Eleven. Clever is proudly distributed by Design Milk.
Visit Bower at bower-studios.com or @bowerstudios on Instagram, and view their new collaboration with West Elm here.
West Elm x Bower Collaboration
West Elm x Bower Collaboration
What is your earliest memory?
Driving naked in a Power Wheels around my neighborhood. - Jeffrey
How do you feel about democratic design?
It’s great, but has its limitations. - Tammer
What’s the best advice that you’ve ever gotten?
Don’t talk about it, be about it. - Danny
How do you record your ideas?
List after list. Paper and pen. - Jeffrey
What’s your current favorite tool or material to work with?
Olfa knife. Don’t leave home without it. - Tammer
What book is on your nightstand? (alt: What’s the best book you’ve read this past year?)
Gardening in Deer Country - Tammer
West Elm x Bower Collaboration
West Elm x Bower Collaboration
Why is authenticity in design important?
Because it all boils down to the end user, and their experience is what really matters. - Jeffrey
What might we find on your desk right now?
A tape measure. - Danny
Who do you look up to and why?
Myself - Tammer
What’s your favorite project that you’ve done and why?
West Elm collaboration #2, it was fun! - All of us
What are the last five songs you listened to?
Oprah’s Bank Account by Lil Yachty, Drake & DaBaby - fives times on repeat - Tammer
Clever Podcast Reflection Contest with West Elm & Bower
We are so excited to have teamed up with West Elm and Bower Studios for a contest to celebrate the new Bower Studios x West Elm collaboration. A reflection can be physical—like a reflection in a mirror—or abstract—like a consideration or thought. We’re playing on this word and asking you to create both a physical and a thoughtful audio reflection to share with us… it could be you talking into a mirror or musing as you record the reflection of the sky in a body of water… we want you to be creative, sincere and expressive.
The winners will be selected by a panel of judges.
Prizes
GRAND PRIZE: $250 gift card to West Elm and a custom mirror from Bower Studios
SECOND PRIZE: $250 gift card to West Elm
How to Enter
- Create a short video of 1 min or less that showcases both a visual reflection & a personal (audio) reflection
- Post your video to Instagram with hashtag #CleverReflectionContest and tag @cleverpodcast @westelm and @bowerstudios
- Email your video to us at [email protected] to be officially entered in the contest.
- Read the official rules here.
Important Dates
Contest begins: August 3, 2020
Entries due: August 18, 2020
Judges select winner & winner announced by: August 25, 2020
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY; Contest begins at 12:00:00 a.m. Eastern Time on [8/3/20] and ends at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time on [8/18/20]; open only to legal U.S. residents of the 50 United States and D.C. who are 18 years old or older; see Official Rules at http://cleverpodcast.com/clever-reflection-contest-rules for additional eligibility restrictions, prize descriptions/restrictions/values, odds, and complete details; limit one (1) entry per person per method of entry; void where prohibited. Sponsor: Clever Podcast, 3250 Oregon Avenue, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Music in this episode courtesy of El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
Shoutout to Jenny Rask for designing the Clever logo.
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