Adam Lynch is living the ID student's dream: He's started making money off of his designs while still in school.
Lynch, who studies furniture design at Australia's Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, created a line of flatpack furniture called Scissor that includes stools, tables, and a wine rack. Made from strand-woven bamboo (bamboo waste that has been compressed into super-hard, dense sheets), the Scissor line caught the eye of Australian company Kaisercraft. They offered to buy the design rights from Lynch, who gave it a hard think.
"I had to look at it from two different heads," he told local paper Geelong Advertiser. "They gave me money up front and royalty payments. I would have to sell a lot of units to match that up-front payment and I wasn't really in the position to make them at will."
Dumb luck? Apparently not: Though still shy of his degree, Lynch has produced another design, this time of a stackable aluminum stool, that two companies are currently vying for the rights to.
THIM-BLE (so named because its likeness to the tailors tool) reflects my design philosophy "simplifying my furniture to the bare essentials without compromising on its aesthetic values, while minimising materials and processes used to ensure that a sustainable outcome is achieved"
The conical design of the 'thim-ble', and choice of either a powder coating or polished raw metal finish, means that the stool fits comfortably in contemporary styled homes or apartments (where it could have indoor or outdoor application) or in the restaurant/cafe environment.
"Engaging in a business relationship with either company," aforementioned local paper reports, "will put the 20-year-old [Lynch] in the role of wholesaler of his own design. He is currently negotiating his offshore manufacturing operations as he also considers the proposals put to him by both companies." Not too shabby for someone who still has homework!
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