Jotter Goods, a collaboration between Singaporean Designer Jerry Low’s ‘A Balcony’ and manufacturing powerhouse, Star Furniture was established in 2013 with high quality designs created for stylish urban living. Central to the brand are good craftsmanship, thoughtful design and quality materials.
Low has invited prominent local designers to create for the brand since its inception and the latest addition is award winning Singapore based Jarrod Lim. Lim’s Butler range was created in response to a very open brief for ‘design for future living’. “In the future we will have better technology” says Lim “but we’ll still sit on a sofa and use a cup to drink. So I considered how that technology is used, for example what we do with our phones, where we put them when we stop using them and so on”.
Jarrod Lim’s more recent work has taken into account that apartments are getting smaller but design tastes are becoming more sophisticated. “People want luxury on smaller scale. Even if your apartment is small you still want it to be classy”. Extending this narrative to the Jotter Goods brand Lim introduced simple ways for furniture to save space and be efficient without making it obvious. “It’s small things that help manage lifestyles. On the sofa there is a little side table connected to the arm rest. If you are working or on your phone you can easily put it down without needing another piece of furniture. The back of the sofa is very skinny so it doesn’t take up or waste space and you can order it with or without the arm rest so that if you want you can push it up against a wall”.
Similarly, the luxurious bed comes with two bedhead options. One includes a stylish leather pocket for phones and loop for easy storage of reading glasses or for accommodating a charging cable or headphones. The bedside tales are small with a lip to stop drips from any night-time cups of water and a small shelf underneath is simple storage for a book or tablet.
The coffee tables created for the range interlock, the heights perfectly calibrated so that they can overlap and work as one unit but are easy to pull apart. They fit snugly under the sofa side table for seamless extension. The dining table has two table-tops. Below a ceramic surface is a second so that those working at the table can quickly clear up by tucking laptops and papers below before preparing to eat.
Lim selected solid American walnut for the Butler range: “Jerry Low loves good materials so the Jotter Goods brand has used American oak, ash and walnut in the past. I wanted to keep it extremely classy so I design this range exclusively from walnut. There is a lot of exposed detailing and we took a long time in selecting fabric for the sofa. It feels very British, a sort of modern gentleman’s club”.
Of course, the pandemic has made this a somewhat unusual project for Lim as he is yet to see and feel his designs in their finished state. “It feels strange but I know Star will have done an excellent job in manufacturing to the exacting standards of the Jotter Goods brand. I can’t wait to see it all for real”.
The Butler Range for Jotter Goods is soon to be launched and expected to be available at retailers worldwide.
Main Images
Butler Collection – Bed (Design registration number: 202030508724.3)
Butler Collection – Sofa (Design registration number: 202030507952.9)
Butler Collection - Bedside Table (Design registration number: 202030507949.7)
Butler Collection - End Table (Design registration number:1202030508717.3)
Thumbnail Image
Butler Collection - Coffee Table (Design registration number: 202030508717.3)