Taylor Donsker Design

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Perfection is momentary, blemishes are forever. Furniture design by Taylor Donsker. Please visit www.taylordonsker.com for more information about purchasing.

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Photoset via boteroarq

tsvetelinat:

Final floor plans for my project

Photoset via boteroarq

Anonymous asked: Random. Do you think attending a school, such as the North Bennet Street School to learn woodworking is a smart idea? Or should I just skip spending $45,000 on an craft education, and learn as I go? Gorgeous woodworking, Sir! I really like your style.

I would rather work at an awesome designer or woodworkers shop for a minuscule rate and take a couple of classes that you are interested in.

kbhelm asked: Taylor, Can you expand on the part about stating property rights with a company in a contract? As the designer do you not hold all rights to an item for your product line and any custom work? Do you have any other tips for things that should be mentioned in a contract with a client? Great work, truly Inspiring. Thanks Kevin

Well I am not an attorney, but you do not hold the rights to the company’s logo. If you want photos of the company’s logo with your product in the same shot, write that into the contract. Also write that you maintain ownership of the design and the right to reproduce.

Write your hourly rate and state that any work that is requested by the client outside the clearly written project description will be charged in addition to the total stated in the contract at whatever your hourly rate is plus the cost of materials. This is called a change order.

grainyvision asked: Hey, I want your job. What advice would you give someone who has a woodworking background but knows nothing about design? Kudos.

Some say you could teach woodworking but being a good designer is something you either have or you don’t. I went to school for 5 years studying architectural design. And then I practiced it for 2 years. All the while I was designing furniture, hundreds of pieces, of which only a few came to light.

I don’t know… Tadao Ando used to take famous architectural publications and trace the designs until the pages turned black. Le Corbusier, I believe, apprenticed as a watchmaker.

Design is everywhere. If you can’t design, just knock someone else’s work off. At some point you’ll make a mistake and it may be revolutionary.

Anonymous asked: How old are you?

26, going on 27 this Friday.

I will soon be selling through Crash Industrial, a West LA based furniture manufacturer and retailer. They specialize in the restaurant market, which usually means high volume.

The Japanese Owner, Naohisa, took an interest in my Japanese tools and offered to buy me a chisel as a gift on his next trip to Japan. Well, that was a month ago, and here are the photos of Koyamaichi’s workshop. I requested one of his multiple hollow chisels and he toured the workshop. Wish I was there!

Preparing concept designs for my next live edge Walnut book match commission. Certain aspects borrow heavily from Nakashima’s Conoid Dining Table, per the clients request. But, I had to make the design my own, adjusting many of the details. I’m looking forward to the possibility of building an all wood base.

Here is the tabletop, post second coat. It is coming along very nicely. I’m retouching the edges to ensure they are smooth to the touch.

jakexp asked: Gday Taylor, Im an industrial designer from Sydney fed up working for wages. I am about to start making timber furniture after hours to sell (hopefully) so maybe one day I can do it full time. How long did it take you before you could give up your day job? Any advice for those first-timers about getting their first few customers? I've got all these ideas drawn up but not about to put a lot of hours or money into making products that wont/cant sell? Or should I? Cheers mate.

I’ll tell you this much: if you don’t make anything you are guaranteed to sell nothing. As far as your first customers, photograph your pieces and publish them wherever you can. As for me, I started with Craigslist. Though, I’m not too sure if you have that out there.

lousami asked: how did you blacken the steel base on your walnut slab table? awesome stuff man!

Birchwood Casey pc9

Anonymous asked: could you also share your wood finishing process? Thank you very much!!:)

That depends on the application, but I generally follow this website’s advice: http://www.thewoodshop.20m.com/finishing.htm

Jump down to Sam Maloof’s finish and thats basically what I do.

Anonymous asked: I really love your work and passion! Would you mind giving a list of your top ten essential tools in woodworking?:) Thanks and Godspeed!

That depends entirely on what kind of woodworking you do. As for the basics, you need a surface to do woodworking on (bench/something flat), a vise, a hammer (gennou), a chisel (oire nomi), a hand saw (Japanese Ryoba would be my preference), drill, and plane (Stanley 7 or large Japanese smoothing plane). That’s all you need. Sure a tablesaw, bandsaw, jointer, etc would be nice. But not essential.

Butterfly joint in 5 minutes flat. Check out this video I made, installing a Wenge butterfly joint into a Black Walnut slab. A mix of machine and hand.