Imagine a furniture designer who intently focuses on the details and geeks out on materiality and sustainability. Picture in your head this furniture designer, who has years of experience creating beautiful products for companies like Darran, Martin Brattrud, Decca and Gunlocke. Do you have a picture of this designer who thought about being a sculptor and hates squared-off corners on furniture pieces?
Now imagine this furniture designer as a woman. I’m describing Alyssa Coletti. And if the description above does not match your preconceived notions of a furniture designer, don’t feel bad. She is part of an extraordinarily small group of women who work as independent furniture designers. Though a growing number of women are working in the design departments of office furniture companies, and a few women interior designers also create furniture, Coletti is a bit of a unicorn.
She is an independent designer and works full time in her trade from her home in Durham, N.C. And it is apparent that she loves her work — the challenge of taking an idea and turning it into a product that touches so many people. She also enjoys working with companies to take a design from drawing to launch, probably because she got her start as an in-house furniture designer at Bernhardt Design.
“My perspective is a little different because I’ve been in their shoes,” she said, “but (when there are issues) I know that they’re not trying to give me a hard time just to give me a hard time. I feel like if they can’t figure out how to make the thing that I want to have happen, that it’s my responsibility to do the most that I can to figure out how to make it happen. And if neither of us can figure out how to make it happen, then it can’t happen. If you force it too hard, you’re not going to get a good result out of it or it will fail.”
She has always been drawn into furniture design by the materiality. “You have so many parameters and restrictions as far as what you can do with the materials,” she said. “You always have limitations with whatever material you’re working with. It’s fun to me to really push things, whether they are sheets or tubes, how you can really do something spectacular with these materials, or at least really interesting.”
Coletti is a careful and complete designer. Her designs are organic, but structurally sound. She understands the manufacturing side of the industry and pushes the limits when it comes to materiality and engineering but understands when to pull back and gets the importance of staying within budget and creating products that can be reasonably built.
Brian Graham, a fellow designer and owner of Graham Design, called Coletti’s work “exceptional.”
“As a committed fanboy, I must admit that I’m a bit biased,” he said. “I genuinely believe that Alyssa’s strength lies in her unwavering belief that she can overcome any challenge or obstacle and create a design solution that is both elegant, functional and captivating.”
Aesthetics are a motivation for her (and she at one time considered being a sculptor), but not when aesthetics gets in the way of actually making the product. “I’m not very romantic when it comes to how things are. I’m not trying to express myself. I’m trying to make something desirable and responsible,” she said.
That means working together with the companies that she collaborates with on projects. She understands that there is push and pull as an independent furniture designer, but she appreciates the pressures the company is under as well, having been in those same shoes herself.
She doesn’t have a favorite design but likes staying in the moment. “I’m usually in love with whatever I’m working on at the time,” she said, “whatever’s just been launched and has done well and been well received.”
Coletti said she’s not quite sure why there aren’t more women who are independent furniture designers. She sees them in adjacent fields. And she knows women designers in other sectors. But she does believe there are opportunities for other women and advantages for companies hiring women designers.
“It’s a stereotypical thing, but you really do see more softness (from women designers),” she said. “I just don’t like squared-off corners that much. I think women tend to be pretty detail oriented. There are these slight details, small details (in furniture design). It might not seem like an important detail if it’s a corner or something or an edge detail, and you’re working on a huge table, that might not seem like a lot, but it totally makes the (furniture).”
Coletti worked with Jay Rubino while he was at HBF. Rubino also worked at HNI and Herman Miller in seating. Rubino said he has been developing designs and running engineering and manufacturing for more than 40 years and as such, has worked with many, many designers.
He said furniture design is a male dominated industry and noted Coletti as one of the few successful female designers, but it goes beyond that. “I would go further and say that she is a very good designer to work with period, regardless of gender,” he said.
Rubino said she has a keen sense of what the market needs at any given time. She designs products that fit the need and takes the company’s capabilities into account as she designs, what he called an important aspect of the process. He also noted her attention to detail.
She also respects the craftspeople she works with, he said. “This is important. The design is very important, but at its inception, it is a concept and not yet a product. The designer needs to work with the development team which includes pattern makers, engineers and manufacturing people. It is this group lead by the designer that moves the concept into a product. It is a team sport. Alyssa works well with all. She holds onto the important aspects of her design to make sure her vision is realized and at the same time listens to the opinions of the other experts on the team. This collaboration allows the details of the design to live and makes sure it is ergonomically correct, structurally sounds and a financial sounds product. Without all these attributes in place, the long-term success of the product is at risk. Both Alyssa’s skill and personality allow her to quickly become part of this team, and they all work together to achieve her vision. She is humble and respectful in her approach and that really makes a difference in the process,” said Rubino.
Coletti is obsessive about refining her designs. She goes over her design again and again, making sure the smallest detail is included.
Like many in the industry, Coletti had never considered designing furniture until she found herself immersed in it. Her first introduction to an independent furniture designer came through a meeting with Marcus Koepke, who designed multiple task chairs for Allsteel and HON. The Purdue University industrial design graduate was working on an internship with RCA (Thompson Consumer Electronics) and one of the designers there had a daughter who was a furniture designer at Bernhardt Design. The two exchanged a few emails and shortly after Coletti’s internship ended she received an offer to go to Bernhardt for an interview.
She didn’t know much about the furniture industry or the company at that time, but did know the furniture designers who created products for Bernhardt. “I didn’t understand everything, but I remember being like, ‘Well, they have Ross Lovegrove designing for them.’ It worked out for me,” said Coletti, who spent about three years in Bernhardt’s design department.
She moved to Durham to take a job with Lenovo and early on, she was conflicted about whether to stay in furniture or pursue a career in electronics design. She felt the pull of furniture once again and headed out to San Francisco to work at Williams-Sonoma Home. Bernhardt called her back to work in marketing, but she missed designing furniture. So, she went out on her own.
Since then, she has designed products for Darran, Martin Brattrud, Decca and Gunlocke. She is currently working on a project with Teknion that is scheduled to be previewed in June with a September launch date. She also has a new chair with HBF and a new table series with Martin Brattrud.