michael james armstrong » industrial design

arrow-modern credenza

Michael James Armstrong — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:06:11 +0000

one of my many vintage industrial design interests is that of the mid-century modern credenza (or side board). whether they be french, american, or the ever popular danish. there’s just something about this particular piece of furniture (from this specific era) that i’m in love with.

with my recent move to a new apartment i decided i’d rather have no furniture at all than crappy hand-me-down furniture. so, needless to say i’ve got a lot of boxes of books, cd’s, and records sitting in the living room. i need storage. but i can’t bring myself to even think about buying another damn piece of ikea particle/fiberboard, flimsy, disposable, crap-garbage-puke furniture. “i can’t, i won’t” – jerry.

so, i guess i’ll just have to build it.

and while some people, like my buddy nick (a fine conceptual design illustrator), are using fancy new computer programs* to sketch their designs – i enjoyed drawing these plans the old fashioned way.

when it’s done (ie, when i have the money to build it) this plywood and steel credenza will be the baddest piece of furniture i own. (next to this little number of course).

*i’d actually really love to try googles new free program sketchup, but i don’t think my wimpy little emac could handle running it. guess i’ll wait til i get that shiny new 24″ imac i’ve been drooling over. which means i’ll be doing quite a bit of waiting. pff.

arrow deco club chaira

Michael James Armstrong — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:23:50 +0000

ok, i’ve been lazy to upload lately. however, as promised, here are the chair photos from the “subjects and thrones” chair show. i’ve included photos from the process of making the chair. since i was so crunched for time i didn’t get to document every step of the construction. i built the chair in 2 weeks. which meant a lot of sleepless nights and forgetting to bring the camera to the studio. and even when i did bring the camera i would still forget to document certain steps because i was blazing through the construction trying to get it done in time. anyway, click the photo below to go to my flickr page and see the rest. i’ve put descriptions for each photo so you can see the process of building the chair.

subjects and thrones

Michael James Armstrong — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:31:34 +0000

here’s a video of the chair i made for the “subjects and thrones” show. the show was put on by adapta project and was located at basile studio, which is connected to the guild restaurant in barrio logan, san diego. this was shot on the day after the opening reception. the first night was packed, a really good turnout. i shot video that first night as well, but there were too many people in the way of the chairs to see them.

in typical san diego fashion, no one sold a damn thing. there were a few really good chairs there though. the two i point out in the video were my favorites. the white, light chair was made by jason wilmot of yesca studio. coincidentally, he had a chair in another show i did a few years ago. the other chair was made by joey vaiasuso of the wood fx gallery. he makes really good stuff.

anyway, the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

making of photos coming soon

building a chair

Michael James Armstrong — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:54:55 +0000

i know, i know, it’s been awhile. but i’ve been busy trying to build this chair:

(ignore the circle design in the top left corner – it has nothing to do with the chair)

i should have it finished in 2 weeks, just in time for MY NEXT SHOW

i’ll post the finished product and pics from the show after the 30th.