Getting comfy with Daniela Duarte
“I’m interested in how the attitude of humans is affected by design,” says Daniela Duarte (B.F.A., furniture design, 2020). “Different shapes and textures call to us in a thousand different ways, and designers have to be aware of the emotions we are evoking when we create our pieces.”
Duarte recently won the Student Award at the International Society of Furniture Designers 2020 Pinnacle Awards for CURVA, a chair she designed in her senior studio class. The Pinnacle Awards recognize excellence, innovation, and originality in furniture design, and ISFD judges called CURVA “exactly the type of product that consumers are looking for.”
Today, Daniela is working at 5 SÓLIDOS in Medellin, Columbia. She took time to discuss her process, path, and passion for producing prepossessing décor.
Daniela Duarte:
As I worked on my senior collection, I was focused on making sure I created a positive feeling for the consumer. My concept was based around creating a sense of belonging. I wanted to design a memorable product and create an experience for the user well beyond just a chair.
CURVA was the first element and ultimately the catalyst for my senior project. The entire year was dedicated to creating a collection that personified my philosophy and spoke to who I am as a designer.
I am interested in the concept of emotional design, and have studied the works of Don Norman to understand how designers can make deeper connections with users through their products. First, I spent a lot of time on the shape of the chair itself. I found that the interlocking components created a sense of calm and peace with my fellow designers.
I tried a variety of shapes, and interlocking connections, then tested those designs with my classmates to understand what emotions came forth with each new design. I found that shapes that were tilting created stress and nervousness. Shapes that were perfectly interlocking or melting into one another were “satisfying” and created a sense of “belonging.”
The idea of belonging drove the remainder of the product experience. The arms are shaped to look like a hug, and the monochromatic colors help the chair create a sense of harmony. The wood is ash, and I love how it works with the gray of the fabric.
From there, I focused on making sure the chair performed well. Would it matter if the chair looked great but you never sat in it? I wanted the product to be both memorable and invisible. Obviously, that is a slight paradox, but good design enhances our life seamlessly.
Professor Fred Spector encouraged me to submit my design to the competition. He felt that I had a good chance of winning, and was very encouraging throughout the process. I was shocked when I won and of course very happy I listened to him.
My experience at SCAD has helped shape me into the designer I am today. When I was looking at universities, I had a teacher, Paola Caicedo (B.F.A., fashion, 1997), who’d attended SCAD and loved it. She encouraged me to come to Savannah since I too wanted to study industrial design. I fell in love with furniture design once I got here.
The furniture design department is a really tight-knit community and the professors are amazing. I was able to design, choose patterns and fabrics, and build life-long pieces for people to enjoy. I loved all of it. I hope to open my own studio in the future, and am learning and growing as much as I can until then.
By Robert Almand
