JASPER EALES,
JASPER EALES ORIGINAL
His “Rawbots” robots, made from interesting collected scraps and wood offcuts, stole the show at the 2013 Design Indaba Expo, where Jasper Eales, an industrial design graduate from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, exhibited as part of the Emerging Creatives platform. But that was nothing compared with 2014, when Eales’s Jabba Surf Rack was on display at the expo as a nominee in the annual Most Beautiful Object in SA competition – not to mention completely sold out from his own stand at the show.
Eales’s offbeat designs range from the superbly lovely yet ultrapractical surf rack to shelves, vases and fold-up tables. But it’s the distinctive little Rawbots, each with its own personality, that bring out his fun side. “I see it as an upcycling of materials, where a new value is given to something that is seen as a piece of junk. I like to think that my Rawbots’ positive, quirky characters are a direct reflection of myself and that my passion and happiness is being shared with whoever takes one home with them,” he says.
The idea of designing and producing his own range of products germinated when he sold one of his final-year projects to Cape Town-based furniture and design company LIM, and now Eales sells his Jasper Eales Original brand at Stable Design Emporium and the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town, online at Africandy (africandy.com) and Superbalist (superbalist.com), as well as through his own website.
Eales’s love of the outdoors informs his ethical, eco-conscious approach to his work, as does simplicity, functionality and usability. Every product is made with the environment in mind. “Making things” is the best part of running his own business, he says, and so is solving problems with functional solutions.