Furniture designing

Furniture designing is the art of delineating and ornamenting household effects so they become objects of beauty and pleasure as well as service. Furniture designing means giving thought and study to the proposed plan; the seeking for the best forms, sizes, proportions, materials, and workmanship to produce what is required. It may be necessary to make several attempts before success is attained, but the result will be the best individual effort. In this sense designed furniture should be useful, handsome, and well made of properly selected material used in an attractive way.

Furniture may be made without any special study or thought, the result being mechanical, careless, and lacking in artistic qualities. A mechanic may make something that is serviceable but extremely ugly, and without design. If, however, he has the personal quality that causes him to take pride in the appearance of his work combined with the knowledge of how to proceed to obtain the beautiful he will become a designer, for he will put his mind to his work, giving it a personality, independent of chance effects. Furniture made without this thought and study brings to the mind at once the feeling that something is wanting. Either the lines indicate an indecision in the mind of the maker, or the methods employed in its construction show no desire to produce the best effect with the material.

The material from which furniture is usually made is wood. Wood is a natural material, which has many qualities to recommend it. It is abundant, easily obtained, and easily prepared in convenient form for use. It is of light weight so that objects made from it are not heavy enough to become inconvenient, and it is sufficiently strong to serve all practical purposes. The ease with which it is worked into the forms desired, and the facility with which necessary repairs may be made are recommendations in its favour.

In addition to these advantages, which may be called technical, there are the aesthetic and physical reasons why wood is superior to other materials. It is agreeable to the eye in its natural state, which furnishes a large variety of colours, but if these do not meet the requirements stains of any shade can be applied with ease. It also assumes, under proper conditions, a polish of a greater or less degree. There are no objectionable sensations experienced when it is touched by the hand, as it is not hard or harsh, nor is the temperature unpleasant.

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