Elliot Brook & Dan Ziglam of deadgood; are interviewed by design conformity, discussing their experience with the team, platform, and collaboration.
What inspired you to create deadgood?
When Dan and I graduated, we were frustrated by the lack of opportunity for young British designers, so we set about creating Deadgood, in order to develop a platform for other designers to have that opportunity within the industry.
When we graduated, the British furniture manufacturing landscape looked very different than it does today. There was a small selection of companies – British-led companies – making furniture, and we were very inspired by what was happening in Europe with the big Italian brands, what’s happening in Scandinavia. For us, we felt there was a room in the market for a new kind of brand, which was design-led, but still had the kind of commercial sensibilities. So Dead Good is obviously northern slang, and it’s kind of northern for exceptional or really good. And for us, we were based in Newcastle, where we started the business. We really wanted something that represented our northern roots and myself I’m from Nottingham, and Elliot’s from Yorkshire. So Dead Good encapsulates that benchmark for quality so it’s kind of a stamp on everything.
It was also quite an observation that the industry was quite conservative as well. And obviously being younger or more youthful than these established companies, we felt that that also represented our sort of personality.
How does circularity influence your design process?
So, we have subconsciously really, incorporated it into our designs, probably from day one and maybe out of necessity. Our budgets were always lower than some of the bigger guys, and how we worked was always lower, so we were always trying to be resourceful, and whether that was trying to use a piece of tooling multiple times for different products, as opposed to just having one tool for one product, all the way down to actual – can this material be recycled, reused? So it kind of came from necessity really and over the years we’ve developed this into a more kind of formal design structure – design language – and we try and incorporate it from the initial idea from the sketchbook as we call it, as opposed to an afterthought which we feel better from that initial point.
There was a project that we were involved in in 2008 which was when the business was in its infancy, and it was a big relocation project and one of the criteria for a lot of the furniture was that it was sourced as locally as possible to the site. Now, we were still developing our ideas and developing the business at that time but one of the things that I noticed was there were definitely some synergies between what was happening with the organic food movement and the idea of slow food, and the rationale behind the business and their objective to source locally and to look at these environmental responsibilities and credentials. So from an early stage we could see that this was going to be something significant that would be part of future projects, so it was in our consciousness right from the very start.
Do you have a favourite circular product?
Our first product where we really kind of investigated this and nailed it, so to speak, was the Working Lounge chair. So this was launched back in 2010/2011. And it was the first product where every single component could be reused, recycled or replaced. And it kind of happened, it was a nice organic process. It wasn’t necessarily that was the brief from the starting point. It just kind of organically happened that the piece, the aesthetics of the piece all combined. We were kind of one of the first to really do this with this aesthetic. So all the webbing of the chair, the seatbelt is on show. And that was intentional – we didn’t want to hide any of the components.
I’ve always looked at Nike and what they have been doing from a couple of different perspectives, and I know there’s a there’s some questionable ethics there, and there’s a bit of a dichotomy between what they do from an ethical standpoint and what they project from a sustainability standpoint – but on the sustainable side of things there’s a couple of projects that they’ve done recently one of which is space hippie which is a piece of footwear which is using space junk – essentially they call it – but it’s all the remnants the plastic waste, waste from the factory floor and I think the claim is something like 90% of the product is made from the found material within the factory. And then at the end of life, those trainers can then be repurposed and used for athletic sports pavilions, floorings, things like that. The reason I find it interesting is because if that’s happening with a company like Nike and there’s an adoption of those kind of principles and people start to understand that from a global company, then that filters down to smaller markets and smaller industries of which we’re involved with, and the understanding and the awareness is raised by companies like that.
When an end user can see tangibly that that product is made from recycled materials or like in the instance that Dan said here with the working lounge chair where they can see that the webbing’s on show, when they can visualise it they understand that product more and they understand those sustainability credentials more. It might be that all of that hidden within a product yet it’s like delivering on a much higher sustainability level but those end users from the inside are finding it hard to understand that product.
What can customers expect from your Re-Love service?
This was something we developed a few years ago, and it actually came from a live request, and usually our best ideas come actually from live customer requests. So we did, many years ago, we did a fit-out in an art gallery in Newcastle called the Baltic, which is on the banks of the Tyne, so it gets hit by the northeast winters. And it was a restaurant, we did maybe about 100 bar stools and some seating for the cafe area. The new operator came in after about probably 10 years of service, and the chairs actually were still holding up really great but the whole branding and the colour of the space was changing. So they actually got in touch with us and asked if there was anything we could do and we said of course we can look at re-coating the chairs. We’ve got a local powder coat we use anyway so it all made sense. We actually picked up the entire collection, re-coated the bits which were worn which was in essence the powder coating and changed the colours to match with a new scheme delivered them back and they’re still using those products today; so gave the product a completely new life both aesthetically and functionally. That really inspired the service and we’ve just slowly been rolling that out with each product range. Generally if the customer needs a product repairing or replacing or recolouring we take on a case-by-case basis and we can do all of those three. So whether it’s new colour scheme the office is trying to implement, or the brand is trying to implement. Whether it is that someone spilled some coffee on a cushion and it’s starting to look tired, we can just take that cushion without having to take the whole piece. So it varies for each different collection, but that’s the general idea of the re-look.
So it’s also testament to the quality of the build and the quality of the products fit for purpose in that sense, but the fact that we’re not having to replace frames, we’re not having to do any structural sort of work – it is purely from an aesthetic standpoint. I think the thing for us is really important is that second life, like what happens when the product comes back, has the work done and goes back out into the market. Not only are we seeing the value in production and that embedded carbon in that first stage of the product’s lifetime, but then when it goes back out and it has a second life, I think that’s also of huge value for us to see that, and to see that it’s delivering in that sense as well.
Why did you partner with Design Conformity?
They offer a very simple set of sustainability credentials that, from my perspective, appear really simple and easy to understand for a client. So the fact that we have these little sort of certifications that sit on the products – almost like what you would find on a washing machine – these things for me are really understandable from a client’s perspective. So part of the rationale for us collaborating with them was because I felt like it was a really simple way of us being able to communicate effectively those credentials that are inherent within the product.
For me, the visual element was really important because we’re dealing with interior designers, interior architects, very visually orientated people and this system really kind of helped us demonstrate our sustainability credentials in a really quick, easy, simple manner. For me, this was a bit of a game changer, as we were finding it hard how do we display our data in a way what people can understand quickly and easily.
Because of the way the design conformity certification works in that it looks at the second life of the product with as much emphasis as it does the first life, that fits really well with our Re-Love programme in so much as we’re trying to design products that are going to come back to us and have that second life after we’ve repurposed or refinished them in the future. So I think that was one of the attractive points from this kind of certification for us.
Why did you partner with Design Conformity?
They offer a very simple set of sustainability credentials that, from my perspective, appear really simple and easy to understand for a client. So the fact that we have these little sort of certifications that sit on the products – almost like what you would find on a washing machine – these things for me are really understandable from a client’s perspective. So part of the rationale for us collaborating with them was because I felt like it was a really simple way of us being able to communicate effectively those credentials that are inherent within the product.
For me, the visual element was really important because we’re dealing with interior designers, interior architects, very visually orientated people and this system really kind of helped us demonstrate our sustainability credentials in a really quick, easy, simple manner. For me, this was a bit of a game changer, as we were finding it hard how do we display our data in a way what people can understand quickly and easily.
Because of the way the design conformity certification works in that it looks at the second life of the product with as much emphasis as it does the first life, that fits really well with our Re-Love programme in so much as we’re trying to design products that are going to come back to us and have that second life after we’ve repurposed or refinished them in the future. So I think that was one of the attractive points from this kind of certification for us.
