Upon first meeting Six Dots Design‘s work, its uniqueness and thoughtfulness immediately stood out. Joe Ellwood’s designs go beyond aesthetic appeal, engaging deeply with current discussions on environmental responsibility. The result is a collection that feels both avant-garde and grounded, challenging our perceptions of what contemporary design can achieve. Since founding Six Dots Design in 2020, Ellwood has transitioned from traditional woodworking to embracing the innovative possibilities of laser-cut aluminum. His debut collection, Contemporary Vanity is more than just a visually striking collection; it’s a meaningful commentary on the future of design. Each piece encourages us to rethink how sustainability and high-quality craftsmanship can coexist. Sid Dots Design elaborated on this approach which signals a promising direction for the industry— one where creativity, functionality, and responsibility are in balance.
How has your identity and background as a British designer influenced your design aesthetics and choice of materials?
Joe Ellwood – I thought about this question for a while and to be honest I am drawing a blank. I don’t feel any great sense of national identity or national pride. I look back through history and have admired a few British designers’ work but no more than any international designers. I think that being in London with the design community here I have found people who I can really relate to and am inspired by. Other than that I’m not sure being British has really been a huge influence or inspiration in my work.
You emphasize creating products with a sense of self-expression and imperfection. How do you think these elements resonate with your Customers?
Joe Ellwood – For me the popular narrative surrounding design and design objects for the past century has been about the designer telling someone how to live or improve their life. As I was taught at university, the role of the designer has been to dictate to the customer what they should want, why they should want it and how they should use it. The result of this, in my mind, is a lot of self indulgent work that pushes technical challenges, joint combinations or aesthetic purity to extremes that have completely lost the foundation that is the customer. I will never forget a meeting with a tutor at university whilst studying architecture. I was trying to pitch an idea for a homeless shelter and I was explaining the specific needs of the people I was trying to help. My tutor turned to me and said, your job is not to care about these people, it’s to design a building. In my work I try to make sure that care for the customer always comes first. When I design and make pieces, I hope to deliver something that gives the customer more value than it costs them in money. I do this by injecting elements of humanity into functional objects, hoping that the shapes, materials and flaws resonate with parts of us as humans. Self expression to me is about having the freedom to like something proudly that someone else is telling you not to like, imperfection is about embracing the humanity in all of us.
I hope to deliver something that gives the customer more value than it costs them in money
How has the balance of functionality and aesthetics evolved in your pieces over time?
Joe Ellwood – The aesthetic is intuitive, it’s free and sculptural, the function is learned, it is discipline and it gives the work structure. There is nothing worse than a blank piece of paper for a designer. If you give me a function for the object I am making and a history of how that object has been designed and made, it suddenly makes it much easier for me to rebel against it and find my own way of creating it.
You transitioned from wood to aluminum, particularly with your Contemporary Vanity; collection. What is the significance of texture and material in your pieces, and how do they contribute to the overall experience of your work?
Joe Ellwood – The decision to move from wood to aluminum was a very conscious one. I knew that I didn’t want my work to be unobtainable and I knew that the processing and craft of woodworking is too time intensive for me to be able to make affordable products and also make a profit. The decision to work in laser cut aluminum with a raw finish was a conscious decision to remove alienated labor from the making process, allowing us to make more pieces more quickly and more cost effectively. The material and finish also gives us a ‘brand’ so people know who’s made the piece without us having to tell them.
Your commitment to sustainability is clear. How do you educate consumers about the value of locally made products and their Surroundings?
Joe Ellwood – When you ask most people if they think sustainability is important when purchasing products, they’ll say yes. If you ask them will they pay more for a sustainable product they’ll also say yes; but when push comes to shove and they make their purchase decision, sustainability or provenance makes basically no difference. I therefore believe that it is a company’s moral responsibility to make their pieces as sustainable as possible as a prerequisite not as a sales tool. People are clever, they know what’s good for the planet and what’s not, they don’t really need me to tell them and even if I do they probably won’t listen!
What role do you think fair pricing plays in fostering a sustainable and ethical design industry?
Joe Ellwood – Fair pricing is such a hard topic to unpick: what is fair? Who is it fair to? How do we moderate price fairness under capitalism? From my point of view, I want to create products that give each customer more value than they paid for it. We make locally so that it’s easier for us and our customers to hold us to account. We really pride ourselves on being open, honest and transparent. I think that there is no such thing as pure virtuosity, just like our products, we aren’t perfect, but if we are open and honest with our customers at least we can learn from them and improve over time.
7) What challenges have you faced in maintaining local production, and how have you overcome them?
Joe Ellwood – I am definitely not done with overcoming the challenges that producing products in London brings! We are lucky in the sense that our way of making, and our finish is simple and fast, this gives us an advantage over our competitors who rely on more industrial processes or more intensive manufacture and finishing. Rent, staff and a thousand other small costs really add up and making the business sustainably profitable is a month to month challenge. As we grow and take on more team members, a larger workspace and more machinery, I am finding that the issues evolve more than they ever really resolve.
Well, In truth I have no desire to make sense of the world. The world is a completely absurd place, contradiction is rife
How do you envision the interaction between your pieces and the spaces they inhabit?
Joe Ellwood – When I photograph my work, often we will do it on a road outside my workspace or on a plain white background, this is because I want the influence of context to be minimized. When people interact with our work, the desire is that they are taken out of their current context and transported into a different world of their choosing. I want our work to be loved, hated and take people away from what they already know.
As a young designer, where are you on your journey of self-discovery versus making sense of the world and society through your art?
Joe Ellwood – Well, In truth I have no desire to make sense of the world. The world is a completely absurd place, contradiction is rife. I think my work is about acknowledging the fact that nothing is rational, ordered or real and allowing that fact to free us from systems, structures or people that try to tell us that there is. I remember vividly someone I used to know coming up to me at a funeral and demanding why on Earth I was interested in making or designing furniture and expressing that they thought it was strange. I think it is even more strange that at the wake of a mutual friend they had given so much thought to the career choice of someone they haven’t seen in years who they probably won’t ever see again. In understanding that there is no normal, there is no correct and incorrect and knowing that as long as we respect others and treat them with kindness, that what we do, enjoy or celebrate is not anyone else’s business.
