Simon James is an Auckland-based designer whose furniture is in hot demand worldwide. He's just returned from the Tokyo Designers Block exhibition where he landed a deal with Japanese design store Idee.

Stephen Adams caught up with Simon at his Auckland showroom.Simon James is an Auckland-based designer whose furniture is in hot demand worldwide. He's just returned from the Tokyo Designers Block exhibition where he landed a deal with Japanese design store Idee.

Stephen Adams caught up with Simon at his Auckland showroom.The Big Idea: How long have you been designing furniture?
Simon James: About 7 years.

You studied spatial design at AUT. What led you to decide that was wanted you wanted to do?
It was a broader course that covered many different areas of design and offered an interesting avenue to follow after the study of fine art.

Every designer has his or her own philosophy (or they steal one from someone else!) What's your approach to furniture design?
Simplicity, clean lines, attention to detail, sometimes pulling together ideas found in graphic design and architecture.

You spent a couple of years in London. What were you up to there?
Travelling, exploring, seeing the world.

What is the Tokyo Designers Block all about?
Bringing together cutting edge, new and established, contemporary designers from around the world to create a multimedia 5 day event about pushing the boundaries of design in Tokyo.

How did you first hook up with the TDB?
I went door knocking via the internet in mid 2000, they liked my work and invited me to exhibit.

What sort of store is Idee?
It's a collection of interesting, challenging, contemporary work from designers all over the world. The store also has a flower shop and cafe, it's more of a lifestyle concept store that seeks to represent a better way of life.

What's your deal with Idee all about?
Idee currently manufacture and sell four of my products in Japan. They will be adding the Hot Rod stool to this next year.

One of the difficulties facing many New Zealand designers and artists is having the ability to meet demand. How do you tackle the logistics of production?
Coming up with a concept and creating a protoype is certainly time consuming and very hands on. However, once a design is 'ready', the production is contracted out to the small network of manufacturers I work closely with, who understand my approach and the quality I want. I can produce both small and large runs of product. With demand increasing I am beginning to hold more stock on hand to keep things running faster and smoother.

What advice do you have for designers wanting to export?
Designs need to be worked through to a standard that will last indefinitely. The international market is unforgiving and demands the best quality, you should aim to maintain extremely high standards for your design and manufacture. Having a good website is very important as it is a shopfront window to your potential overseas market - you never know who could be looking. Having already worked with Neiman Marcus supplying tables
for window displays, we are now exporting to a New York based company and are investigating the Australian market too.

How is the showroom in Auckland city working out? Is there a strong demand for designer furniture in New Zealand?
It certainly seems that way. There has been a palpable increase in demand for designer furniture throughout the last few years, and it still seems to be growing. The showroom is great because it allows the architects and interior designers who specify my products to bring through their clients to see work in the flesh. It also allows the public to view the full extent of the range and to talk to us about the ins and outs of fabric, construction, colour, scale, combinations and so on. I advertise in Urbis and sometimes have pieces featured in Home and Entertaining , amongst others, both of which definitely get the phone ringing, it is great to have a place to invite interested people to come to, to see the work.