From idea to furniture
Furniture that comes from the imagination.
It was late at night in Boston. Peter was in his home office, hunched over his computer. Hope flickered in his chest as he opened the website; perhaps he would finally find the perfect table tonight. He raced past most of the options on the screen, paused at a couple, before closing the site with disappointment.
He had been searching for a few days now on standard furniture websites like Ikea, Wayfair, West Elm, and Crate & Barrel. He had even tried Etsy, but couldn’t find the right portable table for Ted, his 12 year old son. Each night, he opened his browser and was sucked into a baffling maze of research that consumed his time without yielding a result, as none of the tables on these websites fit Ted’s unique requirements. Ted loved to study in his bed, and he loved the colour of red. He also loved high quality, durable materials. Most of the portable tables he could find were black, and none would fit the dimensions of Ted’s bedroom.
A mischievous idea popped into Peter’s head: perhaps he could build one himself. If he built one, the dimensions would match perfectly, the functionality of the table would be tailored for his son, and the colour would be red. It could be the perfect solution, but he wasn’t a designer or a woodworker. He didn’t even know where to begin. How would he communicate his idea? How would he find the right person? Could he ensure it was a good quality? And wouldn’t custom furniture be more expensive?
He called one of his friends who worked in interior design and described his dilemma. His friend suggested a company called Naya. Peter typed the name into his browser and a website popped up.
Naya Studio is a collaborative design platform built to bring your furniture idea to life, read the company description. The Naya platform would help him articulate his idea to a designer and then have the design fabricated and delivered to his door.
Intrigued, he hit the Get Started button and started a new project.
—
As the desk was going to be used by Ted, Peter wanted to get his input early and often. After dinner, they started working on the project together. The initial questions the platform posed were simple, yet they helped him think about the form and function of the table in more detail. He filled in some answers, and left others blank. The platform asked for his desired aesthetic. Peter picked bold, colourful, modern, organic. A list of visualizations of these styles appeared on the screen, and Ted picked an image that looked like a white tidal wave crashing into a red backdrop. The platform asked them to provide a quick doodle on the app with his finger, and Peter worked on a rudimentary stick-man figure and uploaded it onto the platform. It was basic, and yet Peter was proud of it; after all, he had created it.
This was a very different experience from buying a product off the shelf from an e-commerce website.
He was invigorated by the feeling of pulling the wisp of idea out of his mind and giving it physical substance. It was exciting. He looked towards Ted, and he knew he found it exciting too.
“Thank you, a designer will be in touch with you soon!” replied the platform, after they finished answering the initial set of questions.
They shut down his computer for the night and went to bed.
—
Qianyi was in a ceramics class at the Rhode Island School of Design when she heard the ping on her phone.
“Naya Studio has a project that you might be interested in. Please click here to learn more,” read the Naya notification on her phone.
She had applied to Naya Studio a year ago and had worked on many designs since. This was a great side income to her day job, and helped her earn some extra cash while applying her creativity. She had always loved nurturing the seeds of an idea into a beautiful object, and the platform would connect her to a wide variety of clients.
She wiped some wet clay off her fingers and took a look at her phone.The project was for a portable desk, to be used by a 12 year old boy in Boston who liked to study and write from his desk. Her mind sprang into action as she read the rest of the description. She accepted the project and got to work.
—
“Hi Peter! My name is Qianyi, and I will be working with you on this project. Attached are some ideas I came up with. I have not added any colors yet, the colors in the sketches are just for highlighting. The material will be wood.”
Peter and Ted were looking at the message together on the Naya platform. They were impressed by Qianyi’s ideas. She had taken Peter’s basic sketch and given each design idea depth, dimension, and character, while retaining the aesthetic and the functionality that they desired. The third concept, in particular, caught Ted’s eye. The table could tilt up from the center, which would be useful when he was writing in bed.
“We like concept 3!” they replied.
“Great, I’ll start rendering it and provide more detailed images soon,” came Qianyi’s quick reply.
“Out of curiosity, why do you think we should choose wood over metal or plastic?” asked Peter.
There was a pause for a moment, before Qianyi’s words appeared.
“Wood is a warm, natural material. This is a desk that will be touched a lot and I just think the warmth of wood is better than the chill of metal.”
Peter’s eyes widened. What a delightful, articulate response. He was excited to work on the rest of the project. Over the next two weeks, Peter, Ted and Qianyi fleshed out the idea further. Peter remembered one afternoon in particular, when he helped Ted measure the dimensions of his room with a yellow tape. Ted had asked a lot of questions; why was his desk a rectangle instead of a square? Why was his reading light on the left of the bed, instead of the right? Peter didn’t know the answers, but he was glad that his son was genuinely curious about how furniture was designed and built.
The desk soon blossomed from a basic sketch into a beautiful 3-D rendered image, complete with detailed dimensions and rich red colour. The design was ready. It was time to make it a reality.
—
Bruno owned his own boutique design company in New York. He used to work in an architecture office, but grew tired of the endless meetings and repetitive reviews that seemed to impede his creativity, rather than enhance it. He had always loved the making objects with his hands, and felt a visceral thrill when his clients used his objects in their homes.
He had always loved the making objects with his hands, and felt a visceral thrill when his clients used his objects in their homes.
He logged into his computer in the workshop, and checked his email. A new message from Naya Studio had arrived.
“We have a project that you may be interested in. Click here to learn more.”
He had heard about Naya through a friend. It seemed like a good way to earn some extra income while doing what he loved. He clicked into the project and read about a portable desk to be used by a boy in Boston. The initial idea had been simple, but he could see the depth and texture that had been added to the project over time.
Bruno looked over at his workshop and scanned through the design. There were details missing that would need to be filled in during the fabrication process. This would be fun.
He accepted the project and got to work.
—
In the next week, Bruno pulled the desk out of the bits on a screen and into the atoms of the real world, and in the process, added subtle details that were essential to the functionality of the desk, but invisible to the user of it. He added a hidden hinge at the center of the desk, ensured the height of the table would clear Ted’s legs, and sealed Ted’s initials into the top right of the desk, before painting its body with paint that was red as an apple. He sanded the desk’s surface until it shined.
Naya had already validated the pricing, delivery timelines, and performed a quality review; the table was ready to be shipped.
Naya had already validated the pricing, delivery timelines, and performed a quality review; the table was ready to be shipped. Bruno attached a picture of the completed product and sent it over to Peter.
“WOW! great job. It looks amazing! I showed it to my son and he’s totally pumped! You nailed it!”, Peter replied.
He meant every word.
—
The desk arrived within a few days. Ted set it up in his bedroom, beaming from ear to ear. Peter snapped a picture of Ted writing from the desk and sent it over to Qianyi and Bruno through the Naya app. Qianyi and Bruno wrote back, delighted that their work was being used in Peter’s home.
He didn’t consider himself an artist, but he was sure that he had created art with this project.
He then flipped back to his initial sketch, which was just four black lines scrawled on a page. He didn’t consider himself an artist, but he was sure that he had created art with this project. He felt a deep satisfaction, different in character and quality from the fleeting comfort of purchasing a product off the shelf. The desk would be more than a piece of furniture in his home. It would be a shared memory with his son.
Peter took one last look at the Naya platform. What should he create next?
