The art of craft, volume two: Samuel Otis Furniture | Corston Architectural Detail

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For the second instalment of our journal series celebrating makers who put lasting design and quality craftsmanship at the heart of their work, we visited woodworker Samuel Otis of Samuel Otis Furniture.

Samuel first fell for working with wood in the classroom, during design and technology lessons at secondary school. Next came a City & Guilds diploma in furniture making at trade school, and his first jobs, where he cut his teeth.

‘I’ve worked at joineries, I’ve worked at shipyards, I’ve worked in factories,’ he says. ‘I’ve really grasped an understanding of process through these workplaces.’

Yet it wasn’t until he set up a small studio in Falmouth, Cornwall, and started working alongside like-minded creatives and mentors that Samuel really began to think about form as well as function.

‘The people that’ve been kind enough to give me their time and resources to lift me up and help me learn the craft, I’m eternally grateful for,’ he says.

‘They’ll tell me when a curve is too accentuated or too subtle. They’ll name design movements I haven’t heard of and point me in the right direction.

‘I have a very simplistic style, with clean lines and smooth, flowing curves.’