The 2020 lockdown provided us with an opportunity to work on ideas we'd been playing with for awhile. One of these was to transform a basic chair design we'd developed the previous year into more playful versions of itself. Our goal was to completely transform each chair into an illustration (or rather doodle) using a single color and as few additional components as possible —we quickly developed our original four and fabricated them in house.

As the lockdown continued, we thought it would be exciting to invite people into this playful process and to submit their own ideas for the Doodle Chairs. So we organized a competition, shared a Doodle Chair template over social media, and encouraged people to submit their own versions. After we received over 150 submissions, we chose some finalists and the public voted on their favorite submission. We then fabricated and auctioned off the winning design in order to raise money for the local organization: Detroit Will Breathe.

The world of design can often feel cold and uninviting. Our aim with this project was to share the joy of design, bring someone else's idea to life, and ultimately remind ourselves that everything doesn't have to be so damn serious.