Spelling Sophistication – Type Collection by SBW
Taking cues from typography, SBW’s latest furniture collection, Type, is reflective of the brand’s decorated decade in Australia’s design domain. Designed and manufactured in Melbourne, SBW’s end-to-end furniture design house takes care in crafting unique pieces from ideation to fabrication.
The brainchild of Directors Lisa Vincitorio and Laelie Berzon, SBW was shaped by the desire to afford the Australian market an imaginative, homegrown end-to-end furniture brand. Coming together with shared experience in the creative fields of art, industrial design and furniture sales, Lisa and Laelie’s endeavour included the wish to see their designs realised and homed in an end location – a final step often absent for product designers. With focus on the ultimate resting place for SBW’s products, the brand designs with a considered balance between form and function to craft pieces that artfully augment spaces.
Debuting in 2011, a year after initial formation, SBW is now celebrating 10 years in the Australian design landscape. The anniversary marks a decade of producing trans-seasonal, locally manufactured pieces and offering customisation for commercial, hospitality and residential sectors. Throughout the brand’s 10 years in operation, the opening of the SBW Melbourne showroom and recognition in publication Women in Design have been highlights.
True to SBW’s history of delightfully infusing creative inspiration with functional materialisation is the newest collection, Type. Spelling sophistication and presenting sculptural silhouettes, Type is the conceptual collision of furniture and typography. Geometric form is explored through shapely lettering that transforms two-dimensional script into three-dimensional existence, as though extruded from the page.
Expressively designed, the Type collection is a strident divergence from SBW’s previous focus on fine line and detailed elements. The collection offers a visually harmonious array of tables and seating solutions that are robust and salient in nature. SBW’s use of stem and stroke marries soft curves with linear edges of letters such as ‘N’, ‘S’, ‘C’ and ‘D’. The formation of graphic furniture pieces with such solid permanence lends a tangibility and presence that is uncharacteristic to the building blocks of language.
Typically presented as singular fragments of a word or sentence, SBW deviates with Type’s pieces that are crafted as standalone statements – the collection’s letters are independent of assemblage to convey meaning. Although bold, Type is decorous in its luxe, muted palette. Delightfully dignified by the measured tactility of smooth marble, stone, silky timber, powder coated metal and fabrics of velvet and leather, emphasis is placed on materials – rather than serif – to embellish.
Celebrating comfort and championing the material that comprises their chunky heft, dining and bar tables, ottomans, complementary side tables and coffee tables exemplify the clarity of SBW’s design ethos. Unified by the geometric arrangement of arcs and lines, the collection’s weighty carved forms serve as ornamental yet practical additions to home and work environments.
