Collaborations shine light on design

Sometimes it takes a little help to get noticed

Stop, collaborate and listen, isn’t just smart advice from American rapper Vanilla Ice, but also the way local designers are getting it done in terms of building their brands and getting noticed.

Whether it’s teaming up to share the costs associated with renting or leasing a space to show their work, or emerging designers pairing up with those established for projects and events, it seems there is something to the strength in numbers (and shared enthusiasm) thing.

“If you have a product it’s very difficult to get a store to carry your product,” says Yashar Nijati, who founded Chinatown Experiment in 2012 (at 434 Columbia St.), and rebranded it thisopenspace.ca in September 2014 as an online platform that helps people find pop-up locations around the city.

“If you have larger goods, like furniture, or even if you’re an artist, it’s hard to get galleries to show your work unless you’re established. We’re helping people to get their work out there and connect with their audience.”

The network Nijati and his team have built over the past few years connects people who they feel will mutually benefit from collaborating on projects.

“We think of it as you’re somebody who’s new to a city and it’s great when a friend introduces you to a bunch of new friends; that’s what we do from a brand perspective,” he says.

There is a lot of underused square footage in this city, says Nijati, and thisopenspace.ca is capitalizing on this. There might be a spinning studio, he says, which only has four classes a day, and the rest of the time sits vacant. Through the online platform people can negotiate directly with leaseholders to see what works for both of them.

Recent collaborations include finding someone to run a onemonth pop-up from the Mount Pleasant restaurant Doc Lunch while the owner is on vacation; and finding a great space for painter Zoey Pawlak and Jeff Martin Joinery to showcase their

We’re helping people to get their work out there and connect with their audience.

collaboration — Pawlaks’ first foray into furniture.

For Anne Pearson, owner of Main Street design store Vancouver Special, working with industrial design students at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD) to come up with products she is happy selling has proved successful for a second year running. Pearson played the part of critic for five teams of students, who were tasked with designing an object primarily made of wood that Pearson could retail for under $50, helping educate them on the business of design as much as the importance of beauty and function. The five products were released at the Design + Make event Pearson hosted and are selling well in the store.

“Anne was great,” says ECUAD student Melissa Rossi, whose team designed hooks shaped like Vancouver specials, which can hold mail, display artwork or vinyl. “She had very good feedback for us, she was a real client, so at the end of the day we weren’t there to make ourselves happy, we weren’t there to make our teacher happy, we were there to make a product that she wanted to sell in her store and she’s profiting from it and we’re profiting from it.”

One of the most popular products is called Peaks, and is inspired by The Lions (mountains) on the North Shore.

“It’s just a very geometric, wooden, angular, triangular tray that’s a desk accessory that you can use to hold your pens and pencils and things like that,” she says. “It’s very Vancouver, (and) comes in a box with images of the mountain on it. There’s one called ascent and one is called descent; one is light wood and one is dark wood. They’re pretty cool.”

Design collaborations come in many forms, says Jonathon Litchfield, owner of Gastown concept store Litchfield, which opened its doors a year and a half ago, fuelled by a desire for “slow consumerism,” in which we buy one or two things that last us for years.

“I’ve tried to pull together often smaller companies because they’re so focused on quality and those that are doing something slightly radical for their industry,” says Litchfield.

Some of these brands include bags by Vancouver’s Red Flag Design, and perfume by local luxury aromatherapy company Vitruvi.

Designers are constantly searching for new ways to reach an audience. Pop-up space, such as this one at 434 Columbia St., Chinatown, is one such avenue.

Yashar Nijati’s online platform allows people to find unique spaces around the city to run their pop-ups.

Above, paper and media organizer designed by Emily Carr students Karlo Coronel, Nathania Candra and Stephanie Tong in two versions — Peak Ascent and Peak Descent, available at Vancouver Special. Right, Brass bookends by Oji Masanori at Gastown concept...

Buni cups, selling at Gastown concept store Litchfield.

Hooks for mail, to display art work or vinyl, designed to resemble the classic Vancouver special, by Emily Carr students Melissa Rossi, Rene Odermatt and Dillon Moffet.