YouGoods: Buckle Up for the Seatbelt Chair

“I’m in the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold
I’ll be fine once I get it, I’ll be good”

These are the Kid Cudi lyrics that Adam Barron — the winner of our YouGoods Vintage Vehicle Challenge — lives by. And with his spunky, take-charge attitude you better buckle your seatbelts because this guy isn’t planning on slowing down!

Made of steel and junkyard seatbelts (don’t worry, he washed them!), Adam’s winning design, the eye-catching Seatbelt Chair, was a project originally created for an industrial design course at the University of Cincinnati where he had to incorporate 3 of 5 Japanese design principles: humor, craftsmanship, compactness, asymmetry and simplicity.

As Adam tells us, the final product was a result of trial and error, “When I originally designed this chair, I designed the shape of the frame before I chose to use seat belts. My original plan was to make the chair out of large sheets of bent plywood, but based on time, money, material, and space restraints, I had to consider other options. I wouldn’t say that I had a eureka moment, I just started exploring different materials, and wanted to use a thin and minimal material that would let the ergonomic research that I did on my frame speak for itself. ”

No surprise to us, Adam received an A on the assignment! And it seems he made the grade with our Facebook fans and customers as well. The minute Adam’s design hit Facebook, the votes started flying in and he was the clear winner from day one — thanks in part to his own social networking.

“I was extremely excited when I won the contest! I was thrilled to even be chosen as a finalist, so as soon as I found out that I was, I sent out a message to all of my family and friends on Facebook and asked them to vote for me. It was really cool to see how much support I got, especially from friends that I hadn’t talked to for a long time. Another cool thing about the voting on Facebook was that people were really excited for me, so they all spread the word to their friends, family, co-workers, and classmates to get me more votes. ”

The seatbelt chair is now in the design and product development process at UncommonGoods. We hope to get it online and ready to purchase ASAP. And we hope to work with budding designer, Adam Barron, on future products. With his killer skills and a personality to match, we know this is not the last we will hear of Adam Barron.

******

On an unrelated note, I would also like to thank Adam for taking the time to answer my ridiculous
“If you could be any animal, which animal would you be” question.  It was just too thoughtful and cute not to post:)

“After much deliberation, I’ve decided that if I was any animal, I would be a lemur,” Adam says. “I came to this decision not just because they are amazing, ring-tailed, monkey-looking creatures, but we also have some social habits in common. They tend to hang out in groups of about 15 or less (thank you Wikipedia), and socialize in small groups. They also tend to be nocturnal, which I definitely am, and they love fruits. On top of that, they are very talented climbers and good at jumping through trees – both skills that I would love to have.”

Congrats to Adam!