The young, British design great, Dave Irwin, is known as a “focused and commercially aware” furniture designer of objects we use and interact with on a day to day basis. What people don’t know about Irwin however, is his dry humor helps his eye for beautiful pieces that also stand up to the high contract design standards of the education and commercial markets.

Working Girl. Designed by David Irwin. Manufactured by Deadgood.

Working Girl Stool’s Wood and Steel Construction Stacks Up for Easy Education Improvisation

In his most recent 2011 design of the Working Girl stool for the Newcastle-based design/build consortium Deadgood, Irwin uses solid beech with an oak finish for the seat along with a solid, powder-coated steel frame lacquered in fresh red, white or black. Gaining quite the exposure in magazines like Elle Decor and Wallpaper over the past twelve months, we might expect Irwin to get a puffy chest with such huge publications doting on his every move. (Thanks to his charm and humble British personality, that hasn’t been the case.)

“The aim with all his work is to simplify our everyday lives, whether through solving a problem, enhancing function or merely by adding humor to a product,” writes Deadgood of Irwin. The Working Girl stool comes in a low, medium, high and 2-seater bench, showing off a tasteful redesign of what appears to be an old utilitarian stool. He added brass detailing and a sleek elegance to the stackable variety along with individual stool engraving as if they were limited editions.

As the winner of the Peter Walker Award for Innovation in Furniture Design and as the 2008 One Year on Award that commends recent design graduates with an outstanding first year, David Irwin is currently in the designers in residence program at Northumbria University.

About the Manufacturer: The contract furniture design team of Deadgood promises great design with a pronounced regional influence. They create functional contract furniture with a modern edge on lighting, seating, interior products and custom pieces. The Working Girl stools and benches are David Irwin’s latest design for Deadgood’s biting beauty that adds a spark of funky color and style to the contract scene.