Connecting design lovers with authentic designer furniture faster than ever before, new online marketplace West of May, helps you source genuine designer brands quickly and easily.
Just launched in Australia and featuring the world’s finest furniture designs ready for delivery immediately, there are no more long lead times and no waiting months for made-to-order furniture.
Some of the key brands available include: Cappellini, FLOS, Gubi, Dessein, Luxxbox and Designbythem to name a few. Customers can also sign up online to become a West of May member. Benefits include access to special offers and first pick of the latest new products.
Designers and online shoppers can quickly search for items via product, brand, specification, price and location to find exactly what they’re looking for. Plus there’s support via the website’s live chat operators, for the ultimate in customer service on demand.
To help achieve super fast delivery times of between two and 10 days (depending on delivery location), West of May has secured supply from many Australian companies selling authentic global and local designer brands. All purchases are backed by a 100% money back guarantee.
The latest offering by furniture, lighting and object studio Luxxbox, is as deceiving as it is beautiful. Entitled the Pillow Collection, what initially looks like a soft upholstered seat is really a heavy-duty moulded low profile chair, stool, or high chair.
The beauty of this seemingly delicate design is the juxtaposition of several high performing materials, with the leg variations including natural or black stained American Oak or the impressive copper legs. It’s this versatility within the range and countless color configurations which allow it to extend to indoor and outdoor applications both in residential and commercial settings.
The brainchild of Luxxbox founder and creative director Jason Bird, who is based in Melbourne, the designs are an idea he had been toying with for quite some time: “I’ve been playing with the idea of this design for nearly 10 years – the key design elements of the collection, the soft-look top, the integration between this and the timber legs and the sleek chair profiles. It has taken this long for design technology and production techniques to develop to a point where we could achieve the fantastic juxtaposition between a moulded top and timber legs.”
Luxxbox owner Jason Bird has already achieved more than many designers could ever dream. He’s designed stools for Google’s headquarters in California, had his table featured in sci-fi film Prometheus, and most recently been announced as a top five finalist in New York’s Battery Park Draw Up A Chair competition.
But for Jason, who started his Brisbane-based business in 2006, success has come after lots of hard work. Leaving the comforts of working for someone else and taking the plunge to start up on his own.
“I spent a good deal of my early creative years designing for other companies,” explains Jason. “I had a lot of ideas and it was time to start doing my own thing. So I took a risk and opened a showroom in order to have a direct dialogue with the user. We gained some national and international attention and it has grown from there.”
The South Chair: A finalist in the Draw Up A Chair competition
Designing furniture, lighting and objects, Jason’s manufacturing and industrial design background sees him bring a high level of understanding when it comes to materials and processes. It is these skills that Jason believes are central to the Luxxbox style: “I like to challenge and be challenged, so it’s often about how to utilise materials and processes in unique combinations and formats; this often informs the design. I like to use colour and material combinations as well, and generally create well detailed and non-traditional forms.”
The Google Tingle stools
Having already reached a broad audience Australia wide, Jason has now set his sights on Luxxbox conquering the US market. Yet rather than just shipping abroad, he’s gone one step further, establishing a manufacturing department in California.
“Australia is so used to importing furniture products that we probably don’t realise that 25-to-40% of the price is in freight, not to mention the carbon footprint,” says Jason. “Other markets do not import as much and are not happy with the cost, logistics and lead time associated with importing large furniture. So in order to expand in the US we really needed to think about how to do this without such issues. So we developed the strategy of distributed manufacturing, taking a select group of our products and manufacturing them in the US.”
The Brainwash Table featured in sci-fi film Prometheus
In the next few years, Jason hopes to not only continue manufacturing in the US, but to begin doing so in Europe. He also hopes to open design studios in both continents.
But for now it’s business as usual, with Luxxbox currently working on a number of new collections, with a specific focus on exterior seating and lighting. Luxxbox not only has its showroom, but also Objx, a shopfront that stocks the brand as well as other Australian and international designers.
