"hylourgos" wrote in message
oups.com...

What do you regularly look at for ideas? Architectural Digest, FWW,
what? I'd love to have some better sources for printed material to mine
for inspiration.

I love the design side. You can't have good ideas every week, probably only
one good idea a year for someone like me so you are right you need a
technique for getting inspiration. I have two routes into this problem:

First is to think about materials, tools and techniques. An elegant method
of construction makes an elegant piece. You might be considering the
properties of the wood or the decorative grain. You might be considering
laminating versus steam bending, available tooling and what you can do with
it, a method of jointing, whatever, but a bit like form following function
if you can make the form, the function and the method of making hang
together you have the foundation of good design.

Second, in my work there is the question of aesthetics and the visual
vocabulary. In simple terms this is looking at the past and re-using
historical design. It might be architectural references, it might not, it
might be a shape, a line, a moulding, a pattern, a stain, a pegged joint, a
veneer, whatever, but you find it I think by looking at old things. There
are some good old manuals of ornament (Meyer or Owen Jones) there are old
paintings, there are museums and their websites, there are old catalogues
and of course the library too. It's important to remember you are not just
looking at furniture, but all arts and crafts across the board for ideas
that might translate into furniture from say architecture, boat-building,
ironwork, whatever.

HTH

Tim W