Design Local, Market Global:
Creating a Furniture Startup in Denver
and Marketing it Globally

Design Local, Market Global:
Creating a Furniture Startup in Denver
and Marketing it Globally

Architecture, Design

Michael McCoy is a nationally recognized furniture designer for Knoll and others and whose work is in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Julian Fentress is Director of Marketing for Fentress Architects and founder of the Denver startup furniture company Julian Designs. When Julian decided to create a collection of visually striking functional furniture he asked Michael to develop the first pieces of the collection.

They will tell the story of how they first met and worked together on the innovative “Place Airport Seating” for Arconas, which is now in airports around the world including Denver, Orlando, Montreal, Toronto and many others. Based on that experience together they set out to find a local manufacturer for the Julian Designs collection.

They found an amazing metal fabricator with the most advanced equipment in the world right here in Denver and have been working with them to produce the collection. To keep up-front costs low the collection uses laser cut and brake formed aluminum materials which are highly durable and capable of being outside as well as inside. The collection is designed to work well in residential spaces as well as high traffic public spaces such as airports and convention centers.

The marketing approach is as innovative as the furniture in that it relies on social media and the web to spread the word and direct people to the website store. Since the collection is just being rolled now this is still in the process of becoming, so the Q&A period will be a real conversation with the audience about new ways of forming a local company and marketing it to the world.We look forward to the dialog.