Retro Pet Trailers: Le Must de Noël!
Meet designer Judson Beaumont of Canada’s Straight
Line Design Inc.
How many wags until Christmas? The British, it’s true,
have a great fondness for their pets, all manner of pet, but primarily dogs and
cats. We will go to great lengths to make them happy and keep them healthy. In
return they devote their every bark and sofa warming goodness to us, Dogs.
Our precious cats treat us as staff and if they could
they would withhold our passports to restrict our movements and optimise our
thumbs in the constant opening of cans of cat food they deem unsuitable after
just one dainty mouthful. Don’t we just love them?!
Well now…what do we buy them for Christmas? Biscuits
and bones are so last century and every smart pet on Facebook has seen these
jollies from our Canadian cousins and now they are le must de Noël!
Vancouver’s Straight Line Design and their playful
visionary Judson Beaumont have been having a blast in their British Columbia HQ
making amusing objet and multi-purpose installations crafted out of all manner
of material and their eye catching and heart warming line of Pet Trailers are
all the rage.
I got a hold of Judson to find
out more about these unique items and to see how we might get our paws on some
in the UK.
PJ: Judson
Beaumont, Straight Line Design’s tagline is ‘we make quirk work!’
It’s clear that
there is a lot of humour in much of your design and compositions
that challenge
the way one thinks about conventional everyday objects.
Where does that
thread of humour come from and what is your personal
design, art and
craftsman history?
Judson: I grew up with cartoons, with Bugs Bunny, Walt
Disney, and Doctor Seuss. When I graduated from art school, I was making
straight line furniture. I
started to animate it and twist it, but everything
remained functional.
PJ: How was
Straight Line established and who were your first customers? How
did your company
grow? How many colleagues does Straight Line have in the
team these days?
Can you tell us about some of your most high profile
accounts and
what you’ve done for them?
Judson: Shortly after arts school, I found an ad in a
local newspaper for artist studio spaces for rent. My place was to finance my
art career by doing normal
woodworking jobs during the day and work on my silly
designs at night. It
didn’t take very long before people wanted the silly
stuff over the normal stuff.
My business was going fine locally. I was getting
enough work through word of
mouth. But it wasn’t until the internet and doing
tradeshows in the USA that my business really began to grow. Straight Line has
ten workers on the team.
I’ve worked with Disney Cruise Ships on playrooms and
Crayola with sculptural
pieces for their head offices.
PJ: What was the
most outlandish request from a client?
Judson: I did an entire basement with a castle, for
two little girls.
PJ: What range
of materials do you work with?
Judson: Anything I can get my hands on.
PJ: How did you
come to be featured in Russian Elle Magazine and Tokyo Magazine?
Judson: They found me online like everyone else,
images on social media.
PJ: I first
noticed you too on my Facebook way over here in the UK. Images of your
fantastic pet trailers were bouncing around the news feeds for a couple of
days. I shared them out too across all my other social networks and people
wanted to know where they could get their own for their four legged friends. Do
you stock in the UK?
Judson: Everything is custom made by hand to order. We
ship all over the world.
PJ: I think that
they would lap them up at Liberty’s the exclusive landmark artisan London
department store. Why don’t you get a hold of their buyers? Christmas is around
the corner!
Judson: We’re looking into selling in the UK, but the
pricepoint makes it difficult. They’re all handmade, so it’s very labour
intensive.
PJ: What have
you not yet created that you think you might want to one day?
Judson: I’d like to work with a children’s hospital
from the ground up. I’d like to design furniture for schools, daycare, more
children’s libraries.
PJ: Looking at
some of your installations on your website can you tell us the process between
client and your designers as to how ideas are arrived at and executed?
Judson: I listen carefully to what they’re looking
for. I take notes on themes, colour and size. Then I go back to my studio and
start sketching. I’ll probably sketch up four or five versions of them. They
pick what they like, and we slowly pair it down to what they’re looking for.
Then we work out a price. We’re always updating the client on our progress.
PJ: how have you
come to have installations in airports and which ones are you in?
Judson: We’ve done installations mostly in local
airports. We worked with the local designer that did Vancouver International Airport.
She wanted something different than the typical children’s play-areas in
airports. She wanted something that reflected the airport and the city.
PJ: How much
would it cost if you were asked to bespoke a pet trailer in the shape of a
retro 1960’s red London double-decker? I think they would make great multiple
occupancy pet hangouts!
Judson: It would depend on the size, and whether it
was for indoor or outdoor use. It would be fun to work on a project like that.
PJ: You know
what? I think you should craft something for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
and their young growing family for sure! What do you think?
Judson: We’d be interested in that, perhaps!
“My rule is: if you can draw and design it, you can
build it. I love it when someone tells me, ‘You cannot build that’ or ‘No one
would want that’. These words only encourage me more.”
Judson Beaumont was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in
1960. He studied art at Capilano College, Vancouver, British Columbia
completing his studies at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.
He graduated from their 3-D department in 1985 and
that same year founded Straight Line Designs Inc., creating one-of-a-kind
furniture pieces and commissions. He
began with doing hard-edged, geometrical, straight pieces; after five years he
got ‘really bored’. He decided to shake it up and try something different.
Visit Straight Line Design to learn of their product
range and details on how to order your bespoke Judson Beaumont creations all
year ‘round.
Email: info@straightlinedesigns.com
Phone: (00) 1- 604 251 – 9669
Fax(00) 1- 604 251 -1676
Address:
1000 Parker Street, Vancouver, BC,
V6A 2H2
CANADA
PETER JARRETTE IS AN ARTIST AND INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR OF SEVERAL FICTION, NON-FICTION AND MEMOIR ADULT TITLES AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS. HE IS A COLUMNIST AND CELEBRITY INTERVIEWER.
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