High Point Furniture Market in North Carolina is a biannual event that brings together furniture companies, wholesale retailers, and interior designers from around the world. For Cisco Home, High Point Market is an exciting time as we celebrate and launch our new designs. All our dreaming, designing, prototyping and perfecting culminates in Cisco’s High Point showroom.
Starting at early June this year, the Cisco design team gathered to work on new pieces in November 2020. Drawing inspiration from Cisco’s travels and new sustainable methods, Jorge sketched out this year’s 35 new pieces. This market, Cisco is focusing the new designs and new sizes for our upholstery category. A welcome arena for Jorge, who loves working on developing new shapes like our Grace Sofa that was introduced last October.
Maurishka Pinedo is also a fabric aficionado. She contributes an expert understanding of color, fabric, and patterns to the design meetings. Having a small, core team of four streamlines the process. As Maurishka explained, “Cisco is the visionary, Jorge is on the technical side, Camilla Trigano brings the marketing perspective, and I consider scalability.”
After weeks of these design meetings, digital drawings, and careful calculations Jorge’s models will be sent to production. The first stop is the wood factory, based in South Central in Los Angeles and owned by Cicso’s brother, Pepe Pinedo. Emanating from the building is the sweet, earthy aroma of fresh sawdust. Patterns hang from the ceiling as craftsmen cut, glue, and sand down below. Jorge and Maurishka carefully inspected each new piece as it passed through the wood factory, giving notes to the woodworkers. This is where it all starts, with a perfectly made FSC® Certified Wood frame.
Every new piece will then find its way to the engineering area, a corner of Cisco’s headquarters designated for working and reworking the designs as High Point approaches. The design team tweaks and reviews the pieces every step of the way. Meanwhile, the craftsmen take notes and create patterns, documenting the precise materials necessary to later create an exact replica.
The team aims to create the best possible pieces, and thus doesn’t rush this prototyping process. As Cisco explained, “Every good idea comes to engineering area, but some stay here for years until they’re perfect. If something’s not working, we’ll set it aside to come back to in the future.”
The new collection is playful and innovative. Jorge described his inspiration, “I see furniture going towards small-scale pieces that are highly designed, dynamic pieces that are multifunctional.”His face lights up talking about his passion, “I love seeing my design through to creation, it gives me an amazing feeling of pride and satisfaction when my ideas come to life. It’s very rewarding work.”
Our handcrafted collection, designed and manufactured right here in Los Angeles is about to hit the road to our High Point showroom. Each piece is the result of months of dreaming, designing, crafting, and creating; we can’t wait to show you.
If you’re also heading to High Point Market this June please join us at Mill Village!