atelier van lieshout‘s ‘almost perfect’ is a chair that was drawn on a napkin and sent to china without further information. most of the detail was achieved by the chinese manufacturer, lending a sense of imperfection and the mystique of a knock-off to the finished product. on the opposite end is the incessant attention to chinese manufacturing detailed on bunnie’s blog by the maker of chumby. the small low-cost uber-device is just a touch screen in a soft shell with wifi, nevertheless, the maker has visited china relentlessly over the past months to iron out and document each step of manufacturing. the transparency and insistence of this approach has helped simplify the manufacturing process: readers and consumers can write in about problems they’re having and offer suggestions. you can see videos from almost every step of the chumby manufacturing process on the blog:
