Interview: Joe Ellwood, Six Dots Design
Multiple design objects by Joe Ellwood and his studio Six Dots Design have become talking points at the Shoreditch Arts Club… with the reference list growing. Get to know this exciting young London-based designer.
The first commission, as seen at our pre-launch party, photographed by Alfie White.
We were introduced to Six Dots Design work via the interior design team at BGY, with Tessa Faddy spotting his installation at Design London in 2022. After the initial commission of a single table, which we loved, the collaboration grew to commission several more including waiter stations, candelabras, credenzas, ice buckets and more. Ahead of London Design Festival Tessa Faddy and Ché Zara Blomfield, the club curator interviewed Joe, asking questions about the origins and development of his design practice, and why he choose to work exclusively with aluminium (at least for now), the unique material that has led to intriguing commissions in the past, including from Rimowa.
Large waiter station by Six Dots Design.
What was the starting point for your design practice and what has been the biggest challenge since setting up the practice?
I started designing and making objects and furniture in my parents garage when I was about five years old, twenty years later I am doing essentially the same thing. In that sense there was never really a start of my design practice, it was just always something I was going to do. In setting up my practice I’ve had a lot of tough moments but the biggest challenge has been turning something I love into a business. Learning to value my work and having confidence in what I create is not something that comes easily to me. Every time I sell a piece it still feels like I am getting away with something!
Members and collaborators visiting the club have likened your designs, especially the large waiter station, to works by Dr. Seuss, Tim Burton, and Dali. Can you elaborate on some of the aesthetic inspirations for your work?
I really love that the work has been compared to those references but I think the aesthetic I work in is less so inspired by anything or any creator and more a reaction to my design education and upbringing. I had a very strict modernist education at university and for a long time tried to practise with restraint and refinement. It really never felt right for me and so I just started to design pieces that brought me joy. I generally don’t design with references or visual inspiration.
Six Dots Design ice bucket pictured to the left of the waiter station.
I have always had an intimate connection to objects and trinkets and have been known to shed a tear when sitting in a particularly special chair. When I am drawing or making I am really doing all I can to pour emotion into the piece rather than trying to make it look like another designer's work.
What is the design process behind your pieces?
When I am designing a piece for a client, I first try to understand their implicit goal. One of my very early commissions was for a couple whose children had all just left home and they were remodelling their house to be more contemporary. They initially asked me for a few bookshelves but to me, it was clear that they really wanted someone to help them to understand how to redefine themselves and their home in a new phase of their life. My work therefore was to design an object that could set a precedent and inspire a new aesthetic and freedom, I didn’t feel like it was to design a place to store books.
Once I have understood the real need of the object, I essentially just picture it in my mind and do a sketch of it, from that I can then make it. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even sketch it if I didn't need to for the client or for laser cutting. I try to make as many decisions as possible with the materials in my hands, there’s no bigger waste of time in design than spending days deliberating over a detail only to have it in your hands and realise it doesn't work or is really irrelevant.
Candelabra by Six Dots Design for Shoreditch Arts Club.
Aluminium is a hugely sustainable material to use, being infinitely recyclable and using 95 percent less energy to recycle it than to produce it. Can you elaborate on your choice to use this material?
This is a really tricky one. I chose aluminium for a number of reasons, I think it can sit amongst a masculine and industrial pallet really well but equally is quite a soft, feminine and tactile metal. It can take on any colour in its environment which makes it exceptionally versatile. It also does not corrode which means it can be used indoors or outdoors and it will last forever.
The sustainability of aluminium is debated quite a lot. When it is 100% recycled it takes roughly as much CO2 per ton to produce as timber. When it’s freshly extracted, however, it uses about five times as much CO2 per ton to produce as steel. Aluminium can be almost infinitely recycled but the amount of demand for aluminium is far higher than could be met by the amount we recycle. Like most materials you could claim it was sustainable or really unsustainable and you wouldn't be wrong in either case.
Material choice is a really important topic for designers right now but for me it comes down to context and lifecycle. I really wanted to base my work around a material that I liked aesthetically, that was versatile and that if it all went out of ‘style’ it could be chopped up and made into something else pretty easily. No material is really virtuous, especially at the rate we consume in society so it was more about picking something that I felt fit my practice and enabled me to design in the way I want to design.
Tables by Six Dots Design, chairs by Maximum Paris.
How does your practice look different now vs. when you first started in 2020, and what can we expect in the future?
When the practice started, I had just finished my undergraduate degree and I was making bits of furniture on the side of working on a building site. I didn’t really have a direction for the practice. It was more about taking each commission as it came and slowly learning from my mistakes.
Today I have a much clearer understanding of what I want the practice to be. The ultimate goal is for me and a small team to make local and handmade products as accessible as possible. We value local manufacture, skilled craftsmanship, fair wages to makers and quality sustainable materials over all else. The plan is to have a Six Dots version of anything and everything someone could use in a day. These objects will each be handmade, locally, from quality materials with a bold aesthetic. In doing this we hope to create cultural value around not only the end product but the process of production. In valuing the process of production and the origins of products we hope that society will build more intimate connections with the objects surrounding them. This, in turn, will mean they consume less. Out of this revised relationship with objects, we can then build a more sustainable ecosystem.
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