Mino Chair

My BFA project at the Memphis College of Art, the Mino Chair is my first foray into the world of furniture design. Since beginning my study of Graphic Design, I have come to realize that to be a designer is not simply to manipulate 2D imagery. Design is a way of thinking that can and will be applied to all media and formats. Designers are problem-solvers that seek out all manner of challenges to provide a solution to. It is this idea that led me, a major in graphic design, to present a piece of furniture as my final senior project.

I once thought that art and design were about making things look pretty. Now I understand that design especially is about making things work, and work well. Function is greater than aesthetic. In order to be a great designer, one's primary goal must be to create something that works the way an audience wants or needs it to work. Always think about the end user, whether its a microwave you're designing or a poster for a concert.

For my BFA, I wanted to create something that resonated this idea. In order to this, I knew that the piece must be interactive, it must physically, not just visually, engage the viewer. I thought of many digital and electronic pieces that a viewer could interact with through movement or projection, but these faded away as I considered how non-essential their functions would be.

I ended up choosing a chair because the existence of such an object is based entirely on its purpose. Can something really be called a chair if you cannot sit in it? While it may seem a simple or obvious goal, mine was to make a object that fulfilled this question. I also imposed other criteria on myself as to how what the specific end-user goals of the chair were: comfort and stability.