People / Joseph Jackson
Joe Jackson is a London-based designer and maker, recently completing the MA Product and Furniture course at Kingston School of Art, working across wood, metal casting and leather forming. His practice is rooted in material and process experimentation, treating limitation as a form of refinement rather than an obstacle. His recent work has included furniture collaborations with the foundry Maybrey Reliance, and process-led leather work with Bill Amberg Studio. The furniture and objects he designs aim to embody this experimentation and curiosity, representing a narrative beyond the final object.
Score Tray
The project began because Joe had no formal training in leather, and was unwilling to treat something this costly and precious as disposable. Working initially with Bill Amberg Studio, the process was developed using nothing beyond a scalpel, paper templates, basic leather tools and hot water, refined entirely by hand. Since then, it has been further developed within the constraints of a bedroom studio, shaping both the scale and the pace of the work.
The bowls submitted here were developed further from recent work made as part of an architectural award. The simplicity of the method allows for easy adaptation between pieces, and two variations are presented here. Working at a domestic scale meant using offcuts and smaller hides rather than large-format material, with each template cut and scored by hand rather than through machine tooling — resulting in a slower, more deliberate process that has made the objects more refined.