Judging from the several hundred people who turned out for the Washington Design Center's seminar entitled, "So You Want to Be a Furniture Designer," many interior designers these days would like to do more with their custom designed pieces than just supply one specific client. The road to the production line and lots of money in the bank, however, is not as simple as saying, "John Saladino!"

Owning a Manufacturing Plant
The three industry experts -- Mike Moore, Eleanor McKay and John Black -- who talked on the subject at the seminar I moderated represented three different routes, from a small, medium and large size manufacturing perspective. Moore (medium size) of San Francisco, CA, was in business for 10 years as an interior designer before he "fell into buying" his own custom furniture shop, Beverly Furniture in Los Angeles, CA. "The owner wanted to retire and his son didn't want the responsibility of taking over the business, so we bought the shop and now he runs it for us."

With Moore's creative ingenuity focused on making affordable furniture for residential market customers, the company has pushed up sales from $12 million to nearly $25 million annually in three years, with more than 800 items in the catalog. Moore's smiling face in his frequent ads for his upholstered pieces belies his behind-the-scene quasi-panic when he explains, "I am responsible for feeding 1,500 people now. Its scary and I owe the bank millions." Undaunted, he is planning to do what Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani or Donna Karan do, and create products for different market segments. "Eventually, we plan to take the company public," he added.

Copyrights, Patents and Trademarks
Since Moore bought Beverly Furniture, however, he has to be extra vigilant about appropriating other people's designs. He is currently involved in a law suit with J. Robert Scott's Sally Sirken Lewis, who is accusing him of knocking off her slipper chair. Moore claims the piece is in the public domain. Sensitive to another industry colleague's knock-off problems, though, he says he now has the Donghia catalog on the shelf at the factory "so that our people can check when an order comes in with a tear sheet or copy."

The complications of trademarking and copyrighting furniture designs were explained by Eleanor McKay, CEO of Niermann Weeks, a well-known Annapolis, MD, custom furniture firm which she started in a backyard studio 18 years ago with her husband Joe Niermann and metalsmith Mike Weeks. Niermann Weeks has grown in volume to $5 million annual sales, with 500 pieces in the line. McKay says she found patenting products to be far too expensive.

"Copyrighting a catalog can protect you," she says, but trademarking is better. "We've trademarked our name and our logo, and now attach a little brass plaque to all our items. If anyone attempts a line for line knock-off of one of our products, we've got them nailed," she says.

Income from Royalties
Niermann Weeks occasionally accept ideas from outside designers. Sometimes the designers don't want their names to be mentioned in the line. "They just want the royalties," says McKay, "which don't amount to much. We pay three percent of the factory cost on each item." Moore was more optimistic about royalties, saying that one freelance designer earned $15,000 in royalties on a single Beverly Furniture item last year.

How does one get in the door at any company to show furniture design ideas if you are not a designer with a "name?" It seems to be just as frustrating as trying to sell a book idea to a publisher.

John Black, director of product design at Baker Furniture, Grand Rapids, MI, has been on both sides of the business -- as a designer and with a manufacturer. As a result, he always makes a point to see anyone who seems to have a good idea. He says he prefers to talk first before seeing design ideas in drawings or models. Baker, one of the industry behemoths producing more than 1,000 pieces, has more than 20 collections in its line and is not afraid of being knocked off. "People do it all the time, we just carry on and do the best we can to keep ahead of the pack," says Black. But he wouldn't want to see drawings just in case he had plans to do something similar in house. The designers might then conceive that designs had been stolen. But often, as both he and Moore agreed, ideas are in the wind so you are going to see similar designs around the marketplace. For example, Moore said that '20s and '30s French furniture by Jean Michel Frank and others is "hot right now. I have stuff on my drawing boards. I am sure other people have the same thought."

Original Touches
So it all comes back to the question: Is there anything new under the sun? Probably not, but nevertheless the idea for an original finish could make a piece very different. This is what Baker does. And also Niermann Weeks. To them, if they treat a derivative piece with a distinctive new look, then it is their own original.

In considering the touchy subject of who owns what, all these experts stress that interior designers have had the ball in their court for a long time. They send in tear sheets of anything to a custom furniture maker, and it will be done for them, perhaps with a little change here and there, or maybe not. Praiseful as the Foundation for Design Integrity's efforts are, its mission may be more arduous than anticipated. Who is going to turn away business from a big interior design firm ordering hundreds of pieces? As Oscar Wilde wrote: "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."

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