interview :: head & haft - confessions of a design geek

This article was published 12 years

I spotted Head & Haft at Platform during Clerkenwell Design Week and then again at One Year On at New Designers and have been trying to pin founder Chris Thorpe down for an interview ever since, especially as he hails from my home county of Cornwall, and uses materials like found wood and local granite. So without further ado, here it is…

What’s the most important thing to know about you?

I am addicted to Head & Haft, I can’t get enough of it.

What made you want to become a designer?

I think becoming a designer was part and parcel of wanting to be a maker. The axe is one of the most beautiful and perfectly functional tools ever designed. The head and the haft are the two parts of the axe, but one without the other renders the tool far less effective. This is and has always been a metaphor for our ethos towards designing and making.

Where do ideas come from?

Everywhere, anywhere and nowhere. Material inspires us though, and the challenge of designing to exploit its natural characteristics is always a driving force.

Talk me through your design and making process.

It usually starts doing another project, making a mistake, or taking a wrong turn and thinking, ‘Hey! that kind of works.’ From there it’s straight into the workshop. I prototype instead of sketch. Then I come back to the drawing board and figure out the finer details before getting on with making it. It’s the luxury of being a designer maker. It rarely works first time, but making it and being able to touch it and move around it to see how it looks in a space is an invaluable part of being able to get it right.

Which part do you enjoy the most and why?

Definitely realising an idea for the first time in physical form – something you can touch, hold up to the light, and walk around.

Tell me about a really good day in the life of Head & Haft.

A really good day begins with perfect waves at the crack of dawn, and a day of making ahead. Great weather so we can have the big double doors open. A great meeting with a client, and then to the studio to get my hands dirty. Sharing a large steak pasty from Pip’s in Penryn with the mutt for lunch. Then a beer to wash down the sawdust at the end of the day. Get the day’s activities on tumblr, twitter and instagram, and getting loads of new followers. Rinse and repeat.

What are you most proud of?

I’m beginning to see the brand identity that I’m so emphatic about becoming recognised – I’m really excited and proud about that. I also carved a really good frog instrument from oak for a present last Christmas that I am inexplicably proud of!