Is making it to market the only gauge for success?

Reading your feature about Project Isos (DW 20 January), I was particularly disappointed in reading Hannah Booth’s opening remarks. Citing TimeFrame as having ‘mixed results’ and being slightly dismissive of the whole project, I feel the article’s introduction was perhaps ill-informed, and would like to pick up on a few points that I feel need clarification.

TimeFrame was a project initiated by the Shift design collective, which then approached John Miller at Furniture Works with the concept, and a collective of young designers to work with. Shift also brought on board graphic design group Draught Associates, (subsequently retained by Furniture Works for Project Isos) and our own PR and project management

team. It was through the hard work of Furniture Works, and the manufacturing and funding contacts of Furniture Link, that the finalised TimeFrame project evolved.

That brings us to the subject of TimeFrame’s ‘success’. Ok, not all of the products made it to market, but should that be a gauge for the success of the project as a whole?

We feel, like many others, that the project was a huge success, and has acted as a general catalyst for the British Furniture Industry. Also, there is no doubt that the success of this first Shift project has inspired other young British designers to form collectives, and initiate their own work.

TimeFrame has also acted as a template for Project Isos, which, indeed, in its launch, has played on the success of the original project.

Manufacturers including Modus and Thorsten Van Elten have taken on products developed for TimeFrame. Shift members have been nominated for various design awards, included in different exhibitions and tradeshows, and are now working on various projects, which, in many cases, are a direct result of the success of TimeFrame.

Chris Jackson

Co-founder

Shift

London SE8