BigChief Meets Furni in SpareSpase

21 April 2009

Milan-based digital communication and graphic design group BigChief Design will transcend their studio space during this year's Milan Design Week into an exhibition area showcasing their collaborations with Dutch interior and product designer Jack Brandsma and Montreal's wood-loving design duo Furni.

Divided into two congruent components, one area of the gallery will feature Brandsma's SpareSpase crate furniture and lamps, which transform empty shop and office buildings into mobile offices and creative hives. The focus of SpareSpace is on providing beginner entrepreneurs in creative industries affordable and representative offices that can be packed up and relocated, while keeping to an attractive but aesthetically economic design.

The other portion will be dedicated to Furni's work, with large-scale installations by BigChief that play on themes current to contemporary graphic design and illustration, focusing on their established DIY three dimensional paper architecture pieces inspired by Furni and Jack Brandsma's work.

Launching at the exhibition will be Furni's Staab clock for BigChief, featuring the mustache-driven BigChief logo character laser-etched into a wood block and offering a new medium for the much-loved, originally cardboard cutout toy.

BigChief Meets Furni in SpareSpase is an interesting way to combine various applied arts, making them relevant to one another by working off of each others ideas and talents while maintaining their own individual techniques.