I've been woodworking since 2015. When I first started, I was perplexed at how to come up with a design. Rather recently, I've been thinking about a piece I'd like to make next year. (Why not this year? I already have the wood for the next three projects and it will likely take me all of this year to get them done. Could I reprioritize? Sure but I hate changing plans and pushing stuff off. It's a personality thing) At some point, I realized I was designing something. It's not my first (I have two others I will talk about in a bit). On this third piece, it was coming naturally and I wasn't even conscious I had "learned" how to design. I thought it might be worth documenting how I got here. Twenty years from now, my daughter may get a kick out of reading this blog (unlikely but you never know).
I think the first step was just learning how to do basic joinery and wood work with the tools that I own. Though I could probably write a whole blog on basic joinery, I think a dovetail, mortise and tenon, housing dado/rebate/groove are likely the three main joints. I am sure I am leaving something out but I wonder if other joints fit into these categories. For example, a box joint is a kind of dove tail with no slope. A frame and pannel is a long skinny rebate (or whatever it is called when it runs with the grain). By knowing basic joints, I understood how things can be assembled.
By learning the tools (a never ending task), one starts to understand how things are done to get things flat and square, curved, smooth, glue, etc.
Then, I think the next thing was just finding things I wanted to make and making them. Some projects were appropriate for my skill level and some were a definite stretch. That's ok. It's wood and I'm not doing surgery, the downside is minimal. The more I make, from plans, the more I saw. Focusing on what I liked helped me understand what "style" I may want to focus on initially. For me, it was Shaker and Arts and Crafts.
After a number of pieces, I then have a feeling for what thickness common things were. The first thing I designed was a Advent "calendar" for Christmas. My wife and I one early Jan Sunday were sitting the church hall having a pancake breakfast and chatting about the nice family Christmas we had. My wife mentioned how she would really like to have an Advent calendar for our daughter. We chatted and on the back of a church bulletin, I drew something out. The final version was refined some but not much. It needed to have 25 cubbies and I wanted it to reflect both the secular and non-secular nature of the holiday. The stacking type arrangement gave a tree like shape and wood choices resulted in a cross like image in the piece. Design was shaker because that it was I knew and liked. We're happy with it and my daughter has enjoyed using it the past three years. It came together fairly easily in terms of design. If I had to make it again, I would keep the overall design the same (we still really like it). There are some orders of operations and construction things I would do differently but that is true for just about anyting after making one. I typically will write a lesson's learned in my woodworking notebook at the end of each project. I keep a notebook so that if I want to go back to redo something or see how I did it, I have a written record. That comes out of my experience of working as a chemist in the lab and keeping a notebook.
The next design was a bread box for the kitchen. We used to eat a lot of bread. The amt of bread we wanted on hand set the dimensions. I like a mission/craftsman style nightstand I had built so I just took some design inspirations from that and modified it to fit the purpose of a bread box. The big lessons learned on this was 1. thickness matters and at 3/4" stock it was too clunky and it I had to do it over again I would make it 1/2" thick stock 2. Using spare/scrap wood isn't always the best idea. The cherry was fine but I hate hate hate the front pannel of maple as it plain. I should have bought some figured maple for this. Live and learn.
Over time, I've bought a lot of used woodworking books to I have lots of images to look at. Also, I am starting to feel inspired by things I just see. For example, I was watching Season 3 of the Mandalorian last night. I really like the see through part of his visor and think that would make for a nice inspiration in a piece of furniture. I find that I see inspiration lately in all kinds of things. I take photos and dump into a folder for future reference.
As such, I think once you get a bit comfortable making and knowing how to make, ideas just start popping into your head. I've at times had two ideas for certain things. I have since realized that some folks simply have a number of iterations to use all the ideas that pop into their head. As such, choosing one idea/path doesn't preclude you from eventually using the other. Laura Mays spoke a few months back at our woodworking club and you could see in her boxes how various ideas were performed shown over time.
I guess what I'm saying to those who are starting. Don't worry, ideas will come. Just go about making things you like and some day you will look up and realize that you have been designing for a while and didn't realize it. Curious if you have had similar or different experiences.
