All Under One Roof With CW&T

CW: It’s something that was always in the back of our heads, but when we did the Autodesk Residency at Pier 9 it really clicked. We chunked the day out between watching the one kid we had at the time and working, and that routine worked so well that we were able to go from a sketch to a prototype in a one-day cycle, over and over. When we came back home, we were like, “How do we keep this going?” We were looking at outside studios and shops, but realized we have to do this all in our house.

TL: Because we had a kid and another one coming, we couldn’t take 30 minutes to travel to our tools to get one idea out—the commute time would have been a deal-breaker. It was more valuable to use the time whenever we had it. Instead of investing in a separate space, we put that money into getting everything for ourselves and always having access.

CW: It allows you to be spontaneous. I just made this [grabs a white rectangle from the kitchen counter]. I needed a holder for a deck of cards because these cardboard boxes suck! I could go make it immediately as I was thinking about it.

CW: It’s continuous.

TL: Hate is a strong word, but we make stuff and we’re like, “Nah, this is not good,” all the time.

CW: I can show you, as an example [pulls down seven timer prototypes]. There are many more downstairs, each one is slightly different. They’re all not good enough. So we keep making them.

CW: Last night I was reading this essay “First Word Art / Last Word Art by Michael Naimarkhe”. His argument is that there’s basically two kinds of art, “first word art” and “last word art.” Whoever designed the first pen did first word art, groundbreaking work. What we do when we’re designing a pen is last word art; there’s already an established genre called pens. The rules have been set and we are playing in that form and trying to come up with something a little bit better. Our practice is split, sometimes we are trying to do first word art, where we don’t even know how to categorize what we are doing. We love to be in that zone. At the same time, we also love coming up with stuff where there’s already an established genre but we think we have an idea that’s a little bit better.

TL: The story behind our first pens is that I was constantly using this cheap plastic pen with a specific ink cartridge I really liked. At one point I dropped it in the middle of the street and I was running back like, “I need to get my pen!” because I couldn’t find them in NYC at the time. It meant that much to me. We needed a nice case for this cartridge, something that’s indestructible, something that elevates it to reflect how much I love it, as opposed to this disposable object. That was our impetus.

CW: I don’t think it’s a thing we actively pursue, but it happens automatically. It happens to everybody. You live your day, you live your life, and there’s something where you’re like, “Why isn’t there a better version of this thing?” We happen to have the ability and equipment to present a better thing.

TL: Our timepieces take an interesting place in the spectrum of first word versus second word art. We are so used to this 12-hour clock, but there are so many different ways of addressing time in our lives. It’s infinite.

CW: I’m excited that more people are becoming conscious and particular about how they spend their time. With time management apps. Pomodoros. A lot of others are still on this kick of trying to not be shackled by time, so they don’t wear a watch, or remove all their clocks from their daily path. I worry that approach is unhealthy. It makes your understanding of time even more disjointed from reality. For me, not knowing how much time I’ve spent on something is a source of anxiety.

TL: Time is our common ground. No matter who you are, how much money you have, where you live, what culture you have, all of us humans have time in common. Being on time for somebody is a way of respecting another person. It’s a way to connect with the rest of the world that’s respectful. There are not always easy opportunities to do that. Sharing time with someone is such a gift.

CW: It’s as close to a universal language that we have. It isn’t totally universal, there are people on different calendars, but it’s very close.

TL: Seeing our kids grow up I’ve been consciously observing them, aware of those moments when they start to use a piece of technology. I remember with our oldest, Pau, when he could physically make marks on paper with a pencil for the first time. He was at a point where he could only do marks, it wasn’t even in his head that you could draw something representational. It was this idea of expression distilled down. There are the constraints of your body, this pencil, and this paper, and you’re filling it in whatever ways you physically can, making these very rudimentary choices. I love that as a moment. I think about it a lot.

CW: When we’re crafting, part of it is teaching them how to craft, but I also get little bits of inspiration from them, because they’ll do something that’s weird.

TL: They’ll want to do something that doesn’t make any sense.

CW: And then we’ll go do it. At one point, we started talking about how most LEGO is on this grid, and then somehow they were like, can we get off of it? Why don’t we make a piece that’s not a cube or a rectangle? So we made an icosahedron LEGO piece. It had weird ass angles coming off of it. We 3D printed it and then we got to play with it.

TL: Something that comes with having kids is this sense of empathy toward difference. Before having them, I assumed they would be like us, but they are really not. There’s this deep sense of appreciating and loving them for exactly who they are and for their differences, that has been really valuable.

TL: I’m really interested in making people more aware of what it actually takes to make things we buy. One of our personal goals is to tell the full story of what we make and show every step involved. We’re all so used to big industrial manufacturing processes, and to buying things at those prices, and we are going to see some changes.

CW: A bunch of things are going to converge in the next five to ten years. AI-driven design is going to replace CAD, be integrated with everything from CAMing, machining, and laying out electronic boards. At a certain point, the ability to design and take something to production will be in the hands of many more people. That’s going to blow up everyone’s practice—small ones like ours, big companies, all of them.

CW: We’ve been talking about bringing manufacturing in-house, that’s always been my dream. I’d love to figure out how to have access to living and working and production all under one roof, and add manufacturing to that. We also want to make an art residency. To nurture more experimental practices. We just met someone who said, “I don’t know whether to take this corporate job or do this passion project.” There’s a world where you can do both.

TL: I wonder sometimes if design is just scratching our urge to be creative, and actually what we want to do is have an art practice, but we’ve been designers because that’s how we know how to make money, or how the world lets us make money. I don’t know what a world looks like where there are more places for people who are like us. So we would love to try to create space for that.

CW: I love making products. I love that lots of people can purchase and experience these things. But we aren’t trying to only pursue recreating everyday objects. And that’s where we want to be as a practice too. In this weird zone that doesn’t fit in any category.