Back in the ‘70s, industrial-design legend Dieter Rams gave the world his Ten Principles of Good Design, and they are as follows:
Good design is innovative. Good design makes a product useful. Good design is aesthetic. Good design makes a product understandable. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is honest. Good design is long-lasting. Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Good design is environmentally-friendly. Good design is as little as design as possible.
In other words: Good design is hard. And because good design is so hard, there are people out there, like me, who will gladly pay top dollar for it.
I mention all this because Detroit furniture upstart Floyd just released an elegant, minimalist desk, and it’s $460. The “Floyd Desk” joins the brand’s line of other stripped-down offerings, like the dining room table, side table and platform bed, which, full disclosure, your correspondent owns.
What I can tell you about Floyd products is that the are everything good design is and maybe even more. The need for design is often driven by a problem that needs to be solved, and Floyd has done just that by creating modular furniture that is not only easy to assemble, but also easy to move. It’s important to note that Floyd’s first-ever offering was the Floyd Leg — merely a steel table leg with clamp that can fasten to any flat surface, thus turning just about anything into a high-minded piece of furniture.
The Desk assembles in two minutes with zero tools. Meanwhile, the surface is made of birch and finished off in linoleum, making for a charming modern perch that scores high marks for both durability and aesthetics.
And in the end, $460 is, in fact, rather affordable. And that’s especially true once you figure in what you’re really paying for is good design.
Head on over to Floyd for more details.
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