Every now and then, we like to sprinkle a little life after advertising item into the mix, and so with that, our latest person of interest is one Brandon Knowlden, who left his senior art director gig at Cramer-Krasselt Chicago eight weeks ago to, as he says, “pursue working with my hands and creating custom furniture.” The end result is a new, fellow Windy City operation (though Knowlden also works out of his dad’s shop in north Detroit) called Well Made, which produces sustainable, handmade home furnishings like the brick coffee table above and the bench below (cat not included, we believe).
Before we go full Better Homes & Gardens on you, we should mention that, yes, there is also a Kickstarter effort at play here that involves Stiicks, a product that Knowlden dubs “the simplest, most well-crafted frame ever.” A bold statement perhaps, but looks like quite a few folks are buying it as Knowlden is already three-quarters of the way to his $8,000 goal with 24 days left to go. You can peep his Stiicks presentation after the jump. As for whether he’d ever return to full-time ad life, Knowlden, who worked on Porsche, Panera Bread, Heinz and Corona while at C-K and is still freelancing, says “potentially.” For now, though, the creative adds that he’s “more interested in making things that last a little longer than 30 seconds.”