Jason Phillips (designer)

Furniture design career

At an early age Phillips became the VP/Creative Director of his parent's North Carolina design firm, Phillips Collection. In 2007 he simultaneously branched out and founded Jason Phillips Design as an outlet for his freelance designs and other products outside the scope of the Phillips Collection line. Under Phillips, the company began placing its pieces in feature films, including eight futuristic Seat Belt Dining Chairs in the 2012 film The Hunger Games that were acquired by the producers for the film without any lobbying by Phillips Collection. In 2009 Phillips developed the Yenn LED Cube for Phillips Collection, an acrylic chair in the style of a cube that lights when an individual seats themselves upon it, based upon a chair Phillips had seen with his father on a trip to Thailand and developed through a Thai designer.

In 2009 Phillips became the youngest ever recipient of the prized Pinnacle Award, given by the American Society of Furniture Designers for products he called River Stone Planters. The Society also elected Jason to be the youngest ever member of their Board of Directors. He was also announced by The Accessories Resource Team as a finalist for their Product Designer of the Year, and was the winner of the 2009 Art of Design Award in the Trade Secrets category presented by Veranda Magazine. In 2010 he was awarded the Product Designer of the Year award at the 21st annual Accessories Resource Team awards ceremony. Under Phillips direction Phillips Collection has made it a policy to try and establish new trends in furniture design and change their line frequently, instead of keeping with traditional designs. He has been interviewed regarding modern design trends by industry publications including Furniture Today Design Bureau Magazine, and Design Wire Daily.

Travels

Phillips often travels internationally in search of unique design concepts. According to Phillips, the first object he found that inspired his designs was on the small, remote island of Kalimantan in the Indonesian archipelago. He stated that, "we discovered a local legend dating back thousands of years. The aboriginal clans would find stones with magic moving centers. They would carve these stones into an egg shape and inscribe their perpetual calendar. So long as the center still shook it would bring you a year of good luck. We worked with an artisan community in the area to reproduce these in ceramics ... It’s the moment I learned design can be about so much more than aesthetics." The design Phillips created from this inspiration was the Kalimantan Egg.