Daniel Schürer

Design and more

Red Chair Lighting

This series of lights was inspired by the natural environment of my neighbourhood in Cam Thanh, a rural district in Hoi An. The project started out to create a balance to the computer based and highly technical design work that I usually work on. Benefitting from the available natural resources and the exquisite local craftmanship, the lamps are made from bamboo, an extremely versatile and ecological material.

All Red Chair lamps are manufactured with a careful eye for detail. Thanks to the experience and the high skills of a local master craftsman the quality and workmanship are consistently high. Different thicknesses of bamboo, assembled with beautiful joints, textile covered cables, Edison-style light bulbs and brass fittings are among the features that make these products truly beautiful.

RC 01

Table lamp

RC 02

Table lamp

RC 03

Suspended lamp

Batu Ukulele

Building a musical instrument has always been my dream. Having played the ukulele for a while now, it was finally time to build one. The colours are inspired by the beautiful beach in Batu Ferringhi, Penang. The sides are varnished in medium grey. Top and bottom surface are painted in navy-blue, which contrasts well with the gold leaves that are laid down in an irregular fashion.

Corona card game

Another open source DIY project inspired by the current Corona virus crisis. One of the few positive side effects of being locked inside is an increase of time spent with the family. After hours of playing card games, our idea was to update typical card game characters. KING, QUEEN and JACK don't mean much to many people. However, in this time of epidemic everyone can relate to hand sanitizer bottles, breathing masks and toilet paper.
We successfully launched the Corona Card Game on Kickstarter and are still selling it now through on our Pledgebox page:

CLICK HERE TO GET DIRECTLY TO PLEDGEBOX.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE CORONA CARD GAME HOMEPAGE.

Public Furniture

The idea behind this project is to create a range of furniture that is affordable to most people, recyclable and already made of mostly recycled parts.
Instead of being produced in a distant factory, the furniture is made by the user. That way, manufacturing is decentralised and localised again by turning any apartment or garage into a possible workshop. By removing the division between manufacturer and user, anybody can become a producer and a designer, because the design can be modified during the production process as desired.
The production plans can be downloaded free of charge. The designs are protected under Creative Commons « Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported », meaning that anybody is allowed to use the designs for non-commercial purposes.
The main material used is honeycomb cardboard, which is sturdy and light weight. Furthermore, it is mainly made from scrap cardboard and paper. At the end of the lifecycle the piece can be recycled again. For enhanced stability, the cardboard surfaces have been covered with aluminium sheets that were used before as printing plates in offset printing processes. But other surface treatments are possible, like painting or covering them with newspaper scraps. The only limit is the imagination.

PF 01

PF 02

PF 03

PF 04

Water Colour

Living close to UNESCO World Heritage Site is a great motivation to go out sketching. The city of Georgetown has lots of beautiful streets lined with old shophouses and hidden corners.
Below is a selection of sketches made during the gatherings with the Urban Sketchers Penang group.

Linocuts

This series of linocuts takes for subject the vibrant street life of Vietnam which is a constant source of inspiration for the mind of the artist. It features different views ranging from a secluded street in the coconut forest to different street vendors to electricians fixing the wires on a busy street. This personal interpretation of a colourful street life into black and white hides the details from a first glance. Therefore the viewer needs to spend time with the image before its content is delivered to him. Each image has been hand printed on worship paper bought on a countryside market in Hà Giang Province. The wrinkled nature of the paper is perfectly in line with the subject.