Pop design

We recently met Amandine Merle, the founder of Hartô, a creative company creating, editing and promoting design. During our interview with her, however, we got the sense that there was much more to it.

Hartô’s general activity indeed revolves around design drawings and products, but it is also imbued with a playful, radiant and particular tone through the use of raw materials and unapologetically vibrant colours. Meet Hartô, your house’s new best furniture friend (BFF). Wood is the central material to all Hartô products. Next come geometrically-thought splashes of bright yellow, brink pink or acid green paint; the final products thus revealing a paradoxical marriage between pure materials and exuberant colours.

United Color of Furniture

And that’s precisely what we love about Hartô! It’s not just any design company selling products that we must consume; it’s an idea, a concept that we become friendly with. Amandine tells us that her designers were influenced by scandinavian-spirited projects, and therefore look for simplicity, rawness and essentiality in their work. They then go beyond this idea of purity by adding childish buoyancy through both visual and functional means. Visually, the explosion of colours makes the pieces playful and luminous. Functionally, the possibility to use the furniture in multiple different ways gives it a go-go-gadget feel that our inner-kid just adores.

Amandine also gives us insight on how Hartô works professionally. The process of making is long and painstaking, she says, lasting at least a few months for each piece, as the designer and team of Hartô need to work together in creating pieces. The process is thus essentially a series of « back and forths » through each stage, until all creating minds agree on the final product. At the end of the day, the finalisation of each piece of furniture made with passion and devotion procures an unmatchable feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment; and Amandine as well as the team and designers feel like it was all truly worth it. Happiness for both makers and buyers ? With Hartô, it seems possible !

Ethic work

Behind Hartô’s lighthearted spirit therefore lies invisible but inestimable work. Yet Amandine argues that this intense and difficult work ethic does not bother but rather enriches her. As a child, she had dreams of becoming a professional gymnast, a job that to her, wasn’t really one. Today, she is a design manager, and part of the dream has become reality – her job doesn’t feel like a job as it’s more of a passion. We say bravo Hartô.

Check out the latest furniture trends and let the tentation overwhelm you the way it did us ! We instantly became smitten with these material bundles of joy