10 February 2012

Finding the Balance: Dennis Abalos

Juggling full-time design work and pursuing individual projects has paid off for industrial designer Dennis Abalos.

Dennis Abalos has long led somewhat of a double career, finding time outside of full-time industrial design work to develop his own studio, Abalos.

The designer received much media attention for his Woven fruit bowl, which saw him become a finalist in both Launch Pad and the Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award in 2011. Following some refinement in the detail of the weaving and quality of materials, Woven went into production and is now stocked at Top3 by Design, Hermon & Hermon and Sala Verde.

Woven

The Abalos studio is now in full operation, with plans to grow the brand and its product collection.

It's an exciting time for the designer, with an outdoor metal furniture range on the cards for an Australian company, and new bistro chairs in the works for another Australian commercial furniture company.

A re-developed, rattan version of the Snug chair – which gained Abalos an international red dot Design Award for Design Concept in 2011 and made him a finalist in the IDEA Awards 2011 – is being produced in collaboration with Feel Good Designs and looks set to hit stores soon.

Snug

The designer's career journey hasn't been planned, he says, but has rather involved "chasing [his] passion for design and having a creative outlet outside fulltime work," finding inspiration from all manner of sources – from "forms and patterns in nature, to being frustrated at using poorly designed everyday products and wanting to make them better."

Cavern chair

Abalos is a strong advocate for the importance of initiatives for young designers, like Launch Pad, to forge their careers.

"I think there should be more opportunities for emerging designers to collaborate with Australian companies," he says.

"Instead of Australian retailers/manufacturers importing all their products from Europe and overseas, they should first look to talented Australian designers who are more than willing to help, innovate, create and develop the next big thing!"