DESIGN DECODER: SUMER SINGH
Between his professional and personal lives, the industrial designer has a few new babies to nurture at the moment.
Between his professional and personal lives, the industrial designer has a few new babies to nurture at the moment.
opening a designer showroom, outfitting a new studio and welcoming a baby girl to the family all within a year might sound crazy, but Sumer Singh pulled it off. The industrial designer opened Kartar with his wife, Karen, in December 2014. A designer showcase featuring modern Canadian furniture and housewares, Kartar is located next to Good Earth Cafe in Connaught ( in the space that was formerly a magazine shop). At the same time, Singh, 29, wanted to open a design studio for his own label, Mtharu Design; however, he wasn’t expecting to find one so quickly nor one that was so conveniently located.
His studio is a bright spacious room beneath the showroom. It is filled with projects in various degrees of completion. Still reeling from a whirlwind experience at the Calgary Home & Garden Show, Singh is in the midst of building up his Mtharu inventory for Kartar as well as for his seasonal booth at Market Collective.
Singh graduated from the University of Windsor with honours in mechanical engineering in 2008, but decided that he needed to give his creativity free rein. But he hasn’t completely turned his back on his education. In fact, he credits his training with giving him the problemsolving skills he relies on in his studio.
“I like to start working with a design problem in mind,” he says. I’ll sketch out a few ideas and ... let the design cook in my head for a day or two— maybe even a week or two. It just depends on how complex the design is.”
Singh works with a variety of materials, but is drawn to metal and concrete for his furniture. The latter material has become something of “an obsession” for him, and he has come to appreciate its versatility. “It’s not very hard to work with once you figure out the consistency of your mix,” Singh says. “It is actually a pretty fast and convenient material to work with.”
His love of concrete might also be traceable to the study he has made of modern architecture. By following the careers of major architects, Singh has, besides the design influence, gleaned a few business insights. “They are able to scale their designs from a large building all the way to a small table- top object,” he says. “I try to work this way as well; my entire collection flows together seamlessly, from my metal and textile sofas right down to the concrete flower pots I’ve started making.”
Seamless is also not a bad description of how Singh and Karen have adapted to the arrival of Catalina. “She spends a lot of time with us at the studio and the showroom,” Singh says. He’s happy to expose her to the creative energy she is now a part of. “I want to inform my child about everything she can do, including art and design,” he says. “Most importantly, I want to give her the tools to live a happy life.”
I like to start working with a design problem in mind.