The Furniture Makers' Company: Case Studies.

CUBE™ have been working with The Furniture Makers' Company for many years, capturing their annual Young Furniture Makers Exhibition each Autumn, as they showcase the very best furniture and furnishing design talent - from GCSE students to recent graduates.

Continuing our long-term relationship, our latest project dives deeper into the benefits that The Furniture Makers' Company offer young people, and their passion for bringing young talent into the industry.

Through a three-part video series, used as part of the 'My Furniture Career' website launch, we told the stories of three designer-makers and their truly inspiring career journeys...

Through this three-part case study series, we wanted to:

• Raise awareness of The Furniture Makers' Company and its annual Young Furniture Makers Exhibition
• Showcase The Furniture Makers' Company's passion for supporting and fostering young talent into the industry
• Create a tool to share within schools and colleges, to attract young people to the industry and educate them on the many different paths to a career in furniture and furnishings

We worked closely with The Furniture Makers' Company to highlight students from diverse backgrounds that had a truly inspirational story to tell.

Having selected three students, we scheduled calls with each of them to really get to know them, their backgrounds and their career journeys.

As well as allowing us to build rapport with each of the students ahead of filming, this provided an invaluable opportunity to understand the content that we could capture on the shoot day to support our visual storytelling.

After exploring a number of references, we agreed that a personal and relaxed approach to filming would allow the interviews to feel more authentic, and inspire the audience.

We opted for a lean, two-man crew to ensure our interviewees felt relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera, and subtle camera movement to add an element of rawness. We really wanted to capture those natural moments of laughter to add personality and bring each story to life.

Our three-day shoot took us across the country to spend a day with each of the students. Each shoot day featured a tour of the student's environment, an interview and plenty of time to capture footage that really showcased what the students are now doing in their careers.

Across the three-day shoot, we created a series of three hero videos, plus a short social media edit of each video with versions tailored for The Furniture Makers’ Company's social media platforms.

Tab’s story took us to Sebastian Cox's workshop, the award-winning Furniture Designer, based in London, as they spoke about their apprenticeship here and how learning on-the-job has accelerated their career.

Having been heavily involved with The Furniture Makers' Company for many years, it was great to hear from Sebastian himself about the path that he took to become a Furniture Designer, seeing Tab's career develop and the impact that the charity is having within the industry.

Philippa’s story showcases her career change from a Dairy Farmer to a Designer working for Habitat's homeware and lighting department. We travelled back to Philippa’s family farm to capture the case study and tell her story of going back to university at the age of 28 to study furniture design.

Tom’s story showcases his passion for Japanese design and how he's able to express himself through Japanese woodworking. We meet Tom at his very own Kigoroshi Workshop as he talks us through his current projects, before going back to his old college to hear from his Lecturer.

Being able to showcase the ‘before’ and ‘after’ for each student was really powerful in telling their story, and celebrating how they've progressed within their Furniture Maker careers.