When I started designing products for Focus Lab, one of the earliest decisions I made was that wood would play an important part in them.
From a purely practical point of view, there are probably easier choices.
Plastic can be moulded into almost any shape. Metal can be machined with incredible precision. Both materials lend themselves naturally to mass production and the tight tolerances expected of modern products.
Wood is different.
It moves. It varies. It has grain, knots and imperfections. Two pieces cut from the same tree can look completely different. It requires care, patience and an understanding that the material itself has a say in the final object.
More than one person from the product and industrial design world has suggested that I avoid it.
But that is partly why I want to use it.
I’ve always loved wooden objects
I think my appreciation for wood probably began with furniture and interiors.
I’ve always been drawn to mid-century design. Eames chairs. Walnut cabinets. Bent plywood. Long wooden surfaces and sweeping timber interiors. There is something about the material that feels timeless.
It can be beautifully designed without feeling overly designed.
Wood feels mature and understated. It doesn't need bright colours, elaborate forms or excessive decoration to make it interesting. Often, the grain does enough on its own.
And unlike a manufactured surface, it is never completely repeatable.
Every piece has its own pattern. Its own colour. Its own small imperfections.
That means two Focus Lab products made from the same species of wood will never be completely identical.
I like that.
An antidote to a world of plastic
Most of the small objects around us are made from plastic.
Our keyboards. Mice. Chargers. Remote controls. Phones. Pens. Headphones. Desk accessories. And, of course, most fidget toys.
Plastic is an extraordinary material. It's inexpensive, incredibly versatile and capable of being manufactured with remarkable consistency.
But consistency isn't necessarily what I want from a Focus Lab product.
I don't want these objects to feel disposable.
I want them to feel like something you choose to keep on your desk. Something you instinctively pick up. Something that feels as comfortable alongside a favourite notebook, pen or piece of furniture as it does next to a laptop.
Using wood immediately changes the relationship we have with the object.
It feels less like a gadget and more like a possession.
A material you want to touch
This is particularly important because Focus Lab products are designed to be touched.
A lot!
They are objects for restless hands. Things to reach for while thinking, reading, listening or working through a problem.
So the way the material feels matters just as much as the way it looks.
Wood has a natural warmth to it. Because it conducts heat relatively poorly, it doesn't immediately draw warmth away from your skin in the way metal does. It feels softer, warmer and more inviting in the hand.
Then there is the grain.
Even when sanded incredibly smooth, you can still sense that you are holding a natural material. There are subtle variations beneath your fingers that you don't get from a perfectly uniform moulded surface.
And there is the smell.
Particularly when freshly worked or oiled, wood has a distinctive earthy aroma. It's subtle, but for me it adds another sensory dimension to the object.
Sight. Touch. Smell.
There is something grounding about it.
Wood, plastic and metal
I don't dislike plastic or metal. In fact, both have important roles within Focus Lab products.
I love the contrast between them.
Metal brings precision. It can feel mechanical, engineered and satisfyingly exact. It's perfect for a dial, switch, bearing or mechanism.
Plastic offers consistency and allows shapes and surfaces that would be difficult to achieve in other materials.
But I don't necessarily want either of them to dominate the object.
A completely plastic body can begin to feel like another piece of consumer electronics.
A completely metal body can be beautiful, but it can also feel cold, clinical and overly engineered.
Wood sits somewhere else entirely.
Pair a wooden body with a precisely machined metal control and something interesting happens.
Warm meets cold.
Natural meets engineered.
Imperfect meets precise.
For me, that contrast is a big part of the Focus Lab aesthetic.
The beauty of imperfection
There's another reason I like wood.
It doesn't need to remain perfect.
We have become accustomed to products arriving immaculate and gradually becoming worse.
A scratch appears on a glossy plastic surface. A coating chips. An anodised metal edge gets knocked.
The object has been damaged.
Wood behaves differently.
Of course, wood can scratch and dent too. But those marks don't necessarily ruin it. Sometimes they make it better.
A small knock becomes part of the grain of the object. An edge becomes smoother after years of handling. The colour subtly changes as it is exposed to light and the natural oils from your hands.
Instead of simply wearing out, wood develops a patina.
It records use.
And if a mark bothers you, wood gives you another option.
You can sand it.
Smooth it.
Oil it.
Renew it.
A damaged area doesn't necessarily have to be hidden. It can be worked back into the material until the repair itself becomes part of the story.
I love that idea.
An object that changes with you
One of the things I find most interesting about wooden objects is what happens to them after years of use.
The areas you touch most begin to feel different.
Edges soften.
The grain becomes richer.
Natural oils from your hands gradually interact with the surface.
The object begins to reflect the way you use it.
There is something almost contradictory about that in the context of modern product design.
We spend enormous amounts of effort trying to make manufactured objects identical.
Wood refuses to cooperate.
It starts unique and becomes more unique.
A Focus Lab product that has lived on someone's desk for five years shouldn't look exactly like one that came out of the workshop yesterday.
I want the older one to have something the new one doesn't... History.
Something worth leaving on your desk
This matters because I don't really think of Focus Lab products as toys.
They are tools, but they are also objects.
I want them to earn their place in your workspace.
Something you might put next to a beautifully made mechanical keyboard, a favourite pen, a notebook, a lamp or a piece of furniture you spent far too long choosing.
Wood, in my opinion, elevates objects to this level.
It takes something that could easily be perceived as a plastic fidget gadget and gives it permanence.
It makes it feel closer to a small piece of furniture.
An object that belongs in the room rather than something you put back in a drawer when you've finished using it.
Designed to age, not stay new
Perhaps this is the part I like most.
I don't want Focus Lab products to remain pristine forever.
I want them to be used.
Picked up absent-mindedly during meetings. Turned over while thinking. Carried between rooms. Knocked against notebooks. Left in sunlight. Rubbed by thumbs thousands of times.
I want the walnut to deepen in colour.
I want the edges to become smoother.
I want tiny marks to appear.
And years from now, if the surface begins to look tired, I like the idea that it can be cleaned, lightly sanded and given another coat of oil.
Not replaced.
Renewed.
Because there is something fundamentally appealing about an object that gets better through use rather than simply getting older.
A slower kind of object
Focus Lab began with a fairly simple idea: that perhaps the answer to an increasingly digital world isn't always another piece of technology.
Sometimes it might be something physical.
Something tactile.
Something deliberately simple.
Wood embodies a lot of that philosophy for me.
It is natural in a world of synthetic surfaces. Imperfect in a world obsessed with consistency. Repairable in a world of replacement. Tactile in a world increasingly experienced through glass.
And it changes slowly.
A wooden Focus Lab product will pick up marks, oils, sunlight and thousands of tiny interactions over its lifetime.
It will age with you.
For a brand interested in slower, calmer and more mindful ways of working, I can't think of a more appropriate material.
