Although he spends his mornings as a self-proclaimed
furniture salesman, SEBASTIAN COX is a man
immersed in craft.
Words
GRANT GIBSON
Portrait
ANNA HUIX
SEBASTIAN COX: If it’s going to be a busy
day, I get up at 6:45 a.m. The alarm goes
off at 6:30, and I’m awoken by the Today
programme on BBC Radio 4. I get the news
headlines and the cricket score. I take turns
with Brogan – my wife and business part-
ner – to walk the dog. Then we typically
drive to work, although we cycle there dur-
ing the summertime. We live in Deptford,
which is 3 miles [± 4.8 km] from the studio.
It’s around eight by the time we get in. We
eat porridge in the tea room and welcome
the team as they arrive.
9:00 a.m.
Everyone’s generally ready to start by nine
- or earlier, if there’s loads to do. We have
a new regime these days. Before we hired
a studio manager, we used to begin earlier
and finish later. Work would be sporadic,
based on how busy we were. Our manager’s
first job was to make sure everyone worked
a consistent number of hours. When you’re
a one-man band you don’t mind going
home at 11 p.m., but we figured it’s not
fair on the employees, so now we finish at
around six.
I spend the first few hours of the
working day answering e-mails – unglamor-
ous but necessary. We’re getting quite good
at bringing in professionals to take care of
the finance and management side of things,
leaving me and Brogan to deal with sales.
During the mornings I’m basically a furni-
ture salesman. Mondays are for briefing and
maintenance, so while Brogan, the studio
manager and I figure out what everyone is
going to be doing in the coming week, the
rest of the team repair the workshop.11:00 a.m.
Morning coffee break. George Mead, who’s
been with us the longest and is our main
maker, likes routine. He drinks his coffee at
11:00 a.m. – not a minute later. Afterwards
I open my CAD program and start working
away. I design predominantly on a computer.
I like to focus on proportion, so it’s impor-
tant to have accurate measurements. Yes,
it’s possible to do that with pen and paper,
but I’ve found that using a computer makes
things significantly faster.1:00 p.m.
At 12:55 George puts down his tools and
takes out the bread. We all sit down at 1:00
for lunch together in our little tea hut. When
I worked at other places, I remember the
lunch-time chat being about last night’s
TV shows, but my lot don’t seem to watch
anything. They’re all outdoors – exercising,
skateboarding and stuff. They’re only
a little younger than me, but culturally
it’s a significant gap.2:00 p.m.
If possible, this is my making time. We did
a show with the British Crafts Council and
the New Craftsmen for Design Miami, and I
presented a variation on a traditional Welsh
dresser with ceramist Sue Paraskeva. The
piece resulted from a desire to get back tothe workshop. It’s totally self-indulgent –
making a thing that I want to make. I don’t
know if there’s even a customer for it, but
I saw value in doing it anyway. This type
of project helps me to resharpen my tools
and reconnect with day-to-day woodwork-
ing. We’ve expanded our workshop to give
the team more space, but it’s also given
me room to experiment with projects like
this. Going forward, they will be a big
part of what we do. At last year’s London
Design Festival, for instance, we were part
of the Design Frontiers exhibition, where
we showed some of the things we’ve been
doing with mycelium. We’re planning to
launch more of these pieces in Milan.4:30 p.m.
I might return to designing towards the
evening, but I’m in and out of the workshop
all day, checking for mistakes. We try to
brief people very clearly at the beginning
of a project, but sometimes errors occur –
maybe someone will be routing something
the wrong way – and I can spot it a mile off.
When you know your own workshop as well
as I do, and you have your own way of mak-
ing things, you can hear a tool being used
incorrectly. It’s about resolving problems
with everybody. There are particular nuances
to the way we do things, and that’s some-
thing I want to maintain.6.30 p.m.
The team usually goes home before us, at six.
They lock up the workshop and we finish up
in the studio, but our jobs don’t necessarily
stop then. If we’re feeling lazy, Brogan and I
might stop at a restaurant in Greenwich for
dinner on the way home. We have to drive
past quite a few places that we really like. It’s
a chance to have the meetings and conversa-
tions that we should have had at the studio.
We make time to talk strategy, and we do
think ahead now that Brogan has joined.11:00 p.m.
Bedtime. Although I end the day by refresh-
ing my e-mail. ●
Sebastian Cox will be launching new products made from
mycelium during Milan Design Week in April
sebastiancox.co.ukA DAY WITH 55