Jonathan Rose Design works with successful and aspiring people in the creative world. This is partnership and collaboration. Not just a service.
These people are graphic designers, small workshops with specialist skills, larger production workshops, photographers and places using digital manufacturing tools all based in the UK and committed to excellence.
This is partnership in its most elemental form. You have something I need, I have something you need. Lets work out how we can both benefit from it. I can share your story with my world; you can share my story with your world. Treat me with respect, I’ll treat you with respect, because, well, I respect you. We are all better off.
Things grow, they bare fruit and then multiply. Not always quickly but it works. This is how partnerships is for me.
The next few blogs share some of these stories. Here is my first.
Tom S Ironside Furniture Group.
Based on the Feugh at Finzean, in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire, Tom has been running his workshop for over 30 years. He provides specialist hand skills in a workshop large enough to do a 3.5 meter dining table, with a team of five makers and restorers. He teaches, restores antiques, makes any kind of furniture and has the quiet confidence of someone who has learnt the lessons of life. He won’t be taken for a ride but is willing to test his skills when asked to try something new.
His team are all local, served their time with Tom and he trusts them to do an excellent job. He said to me early on, and I quote, “it takes a long time to develop a reputation, but it takes a very short time to lose it”. Once it is lost, it doesn’t always come back. Think of Austrian wine and anti-freeze – that was over 30 years ago and only now is that product coming back on the shelves.
A dining table was the first piece he made for Jonathan Rose Design, from locally sourced timber provided by the owner of that timber. Tom was challenged to join boards with a curved butt joint because a straight joint would have been too wasteful of timber.
Here are some pictures of work Tom and his team have done for Jonathan Rose Design, with comments about what was unusual.
The challenge here for maker Claudia Paterson was to get the legs true to the top using a mitre joint plus a 1mm taper either side of the legs.
Other challenges Claudia did not share!
Simple it may look but joining the top boards needed carefully turned and placed pins. Not easy to find the reference points so everything lined up
From the Woods dining table
Lots of curves fitted with patience and skill by Gavin Paterson