Just over a year ago, the deVOL design team started working on some ideas for a new stool and chair. The stool in particular has been really important for deVOL, it’s something that we really wanted to be able to offer our kitchen customers; a beautifully simple, comfy, stylish stool at a sensible price, designed here in England. Paul and our product designers, Huw and Michael, took the lead on this project, with invaluable input from Robin and, of course, Ben Creed. They are a pretty special bunch and there probably aren’t many better teams to have tackled this age-old challenge.
The unique shape of this seat is not something that was carefully designed to look a certain way; it's a shape that our bodies - more specifically, bums - formed naturally just by sitting on wet slabs of clay. Right from the start of this project, we knew that we wanted to create a stool that was all about comfort and so, for most of the design process, we did our best to avoid compromising this by imposing any stylistic or material restraints along the way.
What we have ended up with is a surprisingly comfortable stool - probably the most comfortable wooden stool that we have ever sat on! The Bum Stool supports a healthy sitting posture by giving proper support all around your bum and helping to distribute your weight evenly. It also remains a simple and visually stunning piece of furniture, machined from high quality British elm and oak; the deep bowling of the seat pan is perfectly complemented by the natural figure of the timber. Our customers are already in love with the design, we have so many orders our head is spinning - in a good way - and we were even awarded a prestigious Design Guild Mark award for the range!