New Forms For Royal Tichelaar Makkum

In these times of mass production, traditional and relatively  small manufacturers of household products and furniture are having difficulties surviving. Mass producer of household products and furniture Ikea is flourishing  because of their  modern and trendy products. Several of these traditional manufactures of household products  and furniture are having, unlike Ikea, problems with their image. An example of one of those traditional manufacturers is Royal Tichelaar Makkum a ceramics factory in the north of Holland and also one of the oldest factories of the country. 1 Their products have the air of being to conservative. To make their products more fashionable Royal Tichelaar Makkum has invited contemporary designers to make products. How do these designers deal with the new image of Royal Tichelaar Makkum? 
 One of the designers who collaborated with Royal Tichelaar Makkum, was the Dutch Hella Jongerius. In 1999 she approached the factory to help her produce the china-set 'B-set'.2 After this collaboration the factory saw a way to overcome their conservative image and invited her to design a collection for them.3  She designed another china-set called 'Soup-set' by order of the factory. She used images from the archives of the factory to silkscreen on the chins-set, but she also hand painted some parts, because the Tichelaar wanted to that they had workmanship-skills.4
 There were several other designers who executed products for the factory, one of the most was designer-duo Studio Job. They used, like Jongerius, images from the archives of the factory for inspiration. These images where hand painted on their series tiles called 'Insect Tiles' (2006) by the craftsman of the factory. Studio Job was interested in the craftsmanship of the factory. 5
 Royal Tichelaar Makkum uses contemporary designers to help them improve their image. The designers creates modern products, but also use the traditional characteristics of the history of the factory. It is likely that situations like this are also happing in other branches of traditional household product and furniture producers. It would be valuable to do more research in this field.
1 Tichelaar (1700- 1876), 2004, p. 217
2 De Vries, 2010, p. 74
3 Jongerius has also designed objects for Ikea.
4 De Vries, 2010, p, 259
5 De Vries, 2010, p. 257