Category: The Anarchist’s Design Book

I’ve completed the last new project chapter for the expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” Now, I need to clean up the new chapters that are related to design and shop mentality and the writing will be complete.

Briony Morrow-Cribbs is working on the copperplate etchings, and I am now figuring out how to stitch the new book together so it flows well and makes sense. We are on track to have the revised edition out by the end of the year.

In the meantime, here is a new chapter that owners of the first edition may download for free. It’s a chapter on a low boarded bench.

I Greco-Roman wrestled with myself over whether to include this chapter. The project is beyond simple – the only joints are the nails. The bench itself is the opposite of fine furniture. But after building five or six of these benches, I concluded that they have some important lessons to teach – lessons that some of us skip.

You can download the new chapter here:

ADB-Low Boarded Bench

And what would a blog post be without caveats? Here they are:

• This is a rough draft. It might contain typos or small factual errors. If you see one, please point it out in the comments. If you want to edit my “tone,” then you must first build a time machine, travel back to 1981 Arkansas and stop Mrs. Hatfield from teaching me to write.
• The drawing is a CAD rendering. Briony’s will be gorgeous and handmade.
• And yes, the chapter’s comment on farts is true.

I am thrilled to be done building the six new projects for this book (though I really wanted to include an additional four that would have spawned a trilogy).

— Christopher Schwarz

Here are links to the other new chapters:

Boarded Settle Chair

Staked Armchair   

Staked High Stool

Mule Chest

The Island of Misfit Designs

Staked Low Stool

We sold out of copies of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” this week, so the pressure is on to complete the expanded edition as soon as possible. To that end, I have just completed the first draft of the chapter on the staked low stool.

If you own a copy of the current edition of the design book, you can download this draft chapter for free. No forms to fill out. No buttons to click to prove you aren’t a robot. Just click the link below.

ADB-Low Stool

Every draft chapter comes with caveats. Here you go:

• If you see a typo or factual error, you can report it in the comments. Note that we use AP style and don’t use the Oxford comma. So don’t bother editing this for Chicago style and then sending us a stern letter about footnotes.
• The illustration is a CAD drawing. The final illustration will be a copperplate etching by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. So please overlook its CAD-ness.
• The final chapter will include challenging quotations in the book’s margins plus some images of elaborations on this stool’s design.

I am now wrapping up the new chapters – just a couple more to go. Briony needs time to create the etchings, and we need to clean up all the chapters and add the details that will make the book better than average. Look for it at the end of 2019.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. If you haven’t been keeping up with updates to this book, here’s a quick primer. If you own the current edition, you’ll be able to download all the new chapters when they are completed. It doesn’t matter where you bought the book – from us or from anyone else.

While the projects and techniques in “The Anarchist’s Design Book” are the backbone of the work, I quite enjoy writing the chapters that are woven between the projects. For the forthcoming expansion of the book I’ve written a bushel of these interstitial essays on design, self-doubt and chair comfort.

My guess is about half of these peckings will make it into the book and half will end up in the ether.

That’s typical for the way I write. I might tap out 2,000 words in a typical day; about half are usable. The other half are misfires, exercises in self-loathing or quarter-baked ideas. But they’re all saved in the cloud so that when I die, Lucy can read them and be reminded of what an odd dufus I was. Before deleting them.

This essay, however, will make it in the book so I thought I’d share it here. It’s about the crappy prototypes that led to the finished designs in the book. There were hundreds of sketches (two sketchbooks full). Dozens of prototypes. And a lot of staring, trying to figure out how to improve the next iteration.

The point of the chapter is to show you how bad or misguided designs can lead to good designs. You just have to study them a bit, instead of destroying them immediately.

As with the other advance chapters for the expanded edition, this download is offered on the honor system to people who have already purchased “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” If you haven’t purchased the book, don’t download the file. Simple.

ADB Island of Misfit Designs2

The caveats:

• This is a rough draft that will get edited by professionals. There are typos in the pdf. If you see one, feel free to point it out in the comments.
• If you feel compelled to rip the designs shown in the chapter, then you have missed the point of the chapter. Think again.
• There are stool jokes in this chapter. And a dancing frog simile. I know some of you are sensitive to the occasional playground jest. If this is you, I’d absolutely positively avoid this chapter.

— Christopher Schwarz 

I’ve finished the first rough draft of the chapter on the Mule Chest for the expanded edition of “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” This chapter is offered as a free download for those who already own the book.

The chapter is offered on the honor system. If you own the book (either the hardbound or pdf), then please download this chapter and enjoy it. If you haven’t bought the book, know that downloading it will make your glue curdle and your finishes wrinkle.

ADB Mule Chest4

Other important things to note about this chapter:

• It is a draft. If you find errors, please let us know in the comments.
• The illustrations are not the final and beautiful ones that will be provided by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. The illustrations in the text were made by me. And I suck.
• The opening photo isn’t the final photo. It’s just a quick snapshot I took today without my photo lights.

But other than that, all the information you need to build a mule chest is there.

I’ve published three additional new chapters, which you can download using the links below:

Boarded Settle Chair

Staked Armchair   

Staked High Stool

In addition to the project chapters, the expansion of “The Anarchist’s Design Book” will contain more personal stories, a chapter on designing chairs for an individual sitter and some new research on glue.

The expanded edition should arrive in January 2020. When it is released, we’ll provide a way for everyone who owns a copy of the original edition (no matter where they bought it) with a way to download the new content for free.

— Christopher Schwarz