Design Public

I admit it: I’ve been letting the designer interviews fall by the wayside recently, and I’m so happy to get them going again. I recently had the opportunity to have a cyberchat with Johnny West of Maku Furniture. Johnny is committed to working to live, leaving as small a footprint on this earth as possible, and surfing, among many other things! You can learn more about him and his adventurous globetrotting on his blog, and you can find the Maku Designs Collection here.

So Johnny, Please tell us a bit about the path that led you into designing furniture. How did your current company, Maku Furniture, come together and get off the ground?

I kind of say this in jest but the brand was born out of our desire to surf in Indonesia and was a joke between friends. “Oh hey we should start a furniture company so we can justify surf trips to Indo…” In reality, I have always been very much a design enthusiast. Be it cars, surfboards, architecture, or furniture I have always been intrigued by cool designs. I have made career in the Action Sports Industry and more specifically the Snowboarding Industry for the last 15+ years overseeing marketing and design for some of the top brands such as K2 (Global Brand Director – Snowboarding) and O’Neill (Brand Mgr / Director of Sales and Marketing). So a “work to live” philosophy is very prominent in my life. I wholeheartedly believe that you have to enjoy what you are doing and have fun in life! I have been fortunate enough to be able to live this mantra and make a career in an industry that I am very passionate about. However, as I have matured and been able to afford some of the nicer things in life, I saw that there was a distinct lack of really cool contemporary designed outdoor furniture in the marketplace. Sure there are some cool brands but a lot of them are almost to “sterile” and I wanted to create a brand that is open, inviting, accessible, casual, fun, yet very contemporary and talked to those people that are passionate design and lifestyle enthusiast such as myself.

All of our designs are in conjunction with Vapor Studios located here in North County San Diego (Encinitas) just down the street from our warehouse and offices in Carlsbad. The crew at Vapor Studios has a very similar background to myself, coming from the Action Sports Industry but having always been not only very much design enthusiasts but incredibly talented designers. Our companies have like-minded DNA, backgrounds, and ideals so it is truly a great partnership and tons of fun working with them!

When did you decide to go green? How did you get started (i.e. research, influences, finding green suppliers, etc.)? I’ve seen in your blog that you are meticulous about being sure that the wood is sustainable.

We never really decided to go “green” it was something that I knew had to be part of this company right from the start since the environment plays such a large part in my life. Being a surfer, snowboarder, and outdoor enthusiast, I have always been tied very close to the environment. Growing up in Crested Butte ( a small ski town in Colorado) and now leaving in the beach community of Carlsbad, you are sometimes painfully aware of the effects we can have on the ecosystem. So assuring that we are good stewards to the earth is just something natural that I would have done in the first place.

As you mentioned, yes, we go to great lengths to assure that our raw materials come from the right sources and are sustainable. It is not an easy or cheap task to assure this. But in the end you can’t put a price on natural resources…

Ultimately I want to be able to give those consumers that are eco-conscious a brand that leaves a smaller footprint on the environment than my competitors do, and for those consumers that are just starting to understand the importance of sustainability within raw materials perhaps we can educate them a little bit and help make a difference on many levels. It is really exciting to see the “green movement” gain momentum. I really think if we don’t start changing our ways as a population the world is in real trouble…

You’ve obviously traveled a lot. Which places and people have had the biggest effect on your design style? In what other ways have your travels influenced your lifestyle?

I think it is hard to pinpoint one place in particular that has had the most effect on my design appreciation. I have been fortunate to have traveled to many of the great cities in this world – Munich, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, NYC, London, Paris, Geneva, the list goes on and on. I always take time no matter how busy I am to just walk around and check things out. It’s kind of fun to just hop on a bus or train and get off at a random stop and work your way back in a city where you don’t speak the language and have never been to before!

I have a very eclectic design style from very grass roots to true modernism. If you were to come into my house you’d see a very casual and inviting setting with influences from all around the world. But I have to say my favorite is our dining collection that my father in law hand built 15 years ago that is very much Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. On a personal level the people of Indonesia have really had an impact on me. Nowhere else in the world have I experienced the kindness that I have in Indo. Especially in Bali - the people there just want you to enjoy the time spent on their little piece of paradise and go out of there way to make sure you are happy, comfortable, and enjoy life.

You’re a big surfer (it’s a blast to keep up on your life on the blog). Can you tell us a bit about what surfing does for you/ how it influences you?

Surfing is the Sport of Kings, with a heritage, history, and community that is unlike any other sport. Just sitting in the ocean is very magical. Sea life all around you and for the most part you are submerged in salt water is very therapeutic. The actual act of surfing is probably the hardest sport I have ever done. You can go Snowboarding or Skiing and the conditions might change a bit – Powder, Dust on Crust, Spring Corn, but the mountain isn’t necessarily moving and changing as you are riding. Where as surfing the wave is moving and you have to be able to adapt to those changes in a split second. No 2 waves are the same, even the most perfect tropical waves change ever so slightly and there is just something special about riding a wall of water that was created by a storm (or fetch of wind) hundreds if not thousands of miles away from where the wave ultimately ends up on the beach.

My wife would say it influences my life too much sometimes because when the waves are good that is all that is on my mind… The influence of surfing is in part what led me to starting this company!

Tell us a little more about your own home. Care to share any pictures of your favorite spaces?

I think I probably answered this in part on the travel question but I don’t really have any good pictures. I’ll see what I can come up with. Aside from our dining collection, I love some of the artwork we have. Beth Weintraub is a friend of my from San Francisco and her artwork is amazing. Like Maku it really takes traditional / natural materials and she puts them into contemporary form. Another of my favorite pieces of art is a painting called “Silvered Kiss” by Karel Appel. He was a Dutch painter and sculptor that really led the impressionist movement throughout Scandinavia and was directly influenced from the likes of Picasso and Matisse.

(painting above by Beth Weintraub)

How do you get yourself out of a creative block/ design rut?

That’s an easy one – GO SURF!

Bottom three photos from Johnny’s blog.