Monthly Archives: November 2017
Furniture Design Course
The Furniture Design Course teaches you furniture design and furniture making skills. The course is based on skills developed and used in a fully functioning furniture making studio. Learn from an expert in woodworking and furniture making. Norman Pirollo, a woodworker and furniture maker for over 25 years, has had his work published in several magazines and books. In this period, he has established four woodworking businesses. Norman has also written the From Hi-Tech to Lo-Tech: A Woodworker’s Journey book, chronicling his journey into woodworking. He recently authored the Woodworking: From Design To Making book.
In this course, I cover furniture design. Good design is essential in a quality furniture piece. Good design minimizes wasted resources and provides a furniture maker with essential feedback and pause when creating furniture. Loosely translated, the design process keeps a maker from rushing into a potentially flawed furniture design. The checks and balances give pause to the process as well as streamlining the build. Developing your own furniture style and aesthetic is covered. Selecting the right woods for a furniture design is critical in determining the appeal of a furniture piece.
As with most woodworkers, I was anxious to build furniture early on. With the passage of time and several furniture project completed, the anxiety of simply creating work had passed. It was far more important to create a well-designed and striking piece of furniture. So I delved into furniture design, studied with a few renown furniture makers, and used this knowledge to develop a furniture design process that works.
In the online furniture design course you will acquire skills necessary to design and create your own unique furniture. Learn to develop your own style of furniture and aesthetic. Over 2.3 hours in total. The course features videos on these topics:
- Furniture design overview, history of furniture design
- Become familiar with furniture design process
- Understand design, bring your furniture designs to next level
- How to select wood for a furniture design
- Use mockups + prototypes to develop furniture designs
- Selecting a furniture style and aesthetic
- Developing a furniture design
- Getting proportions right in furniture design
- Use dynamic design process in furniture design
- Use maquettes + prototypes in furniture design
- Use templates + CAD to design your furniture
- (2) video lectures on creating a niche & developing furniture to market
– Separate Introduction module
– 15 video modules from wood selection, drawing, mockups, prototypes, CAD
– Modules can be followed in any order and stopped or repeated at any time
– 15 video modules (2.3 hours) included in the single $40 price
START WOODWORKING (eBook, 115 pgs., $15) included with this course
Furniture Design Course $40
Norman maintains a blog of ongoing projects in his studio at: Pirollo Design Blog as well as having written and published four books in the past year. Some of the books and magazines which the authors furniture, work methods and philosophy have been featured:
Quiet Woodworking (New Art Press)
Hand Tool Woodworking (New Art Press)
Start Woodworking (New Art Press)
Craftisian Interview (Norman Pirollo)
HackSpace Magazine – Make With Wood April 2020
Woodworking: From Design To Making (New Art Press)
The Wood Artist: Creating Art Through Wood (New Art Press)
From Hi-Tech to Lo-Tech: A Woodworker’s Journey (NAP)
Start Your Own Woodworking Business (New Art Press)
Rooted: Contemporary Studio Furniture (Schiffer)
IDS15 (Studio North)
Canadian Woodworking magazine Jan. 2015
Our Homes magazine Fall 2014
IDS14 (Studio North)
NICHE Magazine Winter 2013
Fine Woodworking Magazine – 4 Bench Jigs for Handplanes
Fine Woodworking Magazine – Essential Shopmade Jigs
Woodwork magazine
Wood Art Today 2 (Schiffer Books)
500 Cabinets ( Lark Books)
Studio Furniture: Today’s Leading Woodworkers (Schiffer)
Canadian Interiors Design Source Guide
Ottawa Life magazine (Profile,work) 2012
Panoram Italia magazine
Our Homes magazine
Craft Journal
The evolution…
Several years ago, 2006 to be exact, Michael Dresdner contacted me to ask about profiling my work and practice in an upcoming Woodworker’s Journal online publication. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about my woodworking and how I got to where I was at the time. I was transitioning from primarily being a box maker to furniture making and the reasons for this shift in direction were discussed in the interview.
In that period, I had completed a series of courses at a high-end furniture making school and began to use hand tools more in my work. I recall that the year 2006 was an important juncture in my woodworking. I had embraced the Krenov philosophy and his methods of work. Reading and attending the fine furniture making school inspired me to increase the complexity and scale of my woodworking. I also learned to slow down my woodworking and focus instead on each and every piece rather than applying myself to creating in batch mode ( multiples). So my direction changed dramatically in the years 2006-2008 to where I now design + build one-off furniture pieces exclusively.
The most important takeaway from the interview would likely be the last line: “If you are tired of your day job, Pirollo advises, do what I did. Pursue your passion instead.” I completely believe in this quote to this day. It is never to early to pursue your passion. Get a head start, so if unforeseen circumstances affect your livelihood (career), you will be prepared. Early on my hi-tech career, I pursued many woodworking courses at the college level, set up my own workshops and struggled and worked at learning woodworking. After experiencing a total of 3 downsizings, I gave up on my hi-tech career and moved on to a career in woodworking. This had been my Plan B all along 🙂 The important part is that I was well prepared to launch a second career. You never know where fate will lead you!
I’ll let you read the article.
Norman Pirollo: The Refined Edge of White Mountain