Clean simple lines best describe the esthetic Diane McCabe embraces in the furniture she designs.
McCabe, a senior furniture design student at Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, used this concept in the "platform” bed design that earned her first place in the American Society of Furniture Designers annual David Kline Memorial Scholarship contest last month.
Contest application kits were sent to colleges across the country by contest co-sponsor Hafele America Co, a supplier of functional and decorative cabinet furniture, asking students to design a piece of furniture utilizing Hafele's Tab A Honeycomb Connector.
"My inspiration came from the new materials, pushing materials to new limits of design and function while using a minimal style and clean and simple lines with a lot of functionality,” said McCabe who won first place and an award of $3,500, after winning third place in the contest the previous two years.
Judges noted that she showed a good understanding of the design process which was expressed in a well defined product idea for the described target market.
McCabe, a graduate of Traverse City St. Francis High School and the Career Tech Center, enjoys solving design problems using innovative materials to create an overall good design. She gives some credit for this to growing up in a family full of engineers.
"When I was graduating from high school I traveled to Michigan Tech to see if it would be a good fit for me, studying engineering, but I found that it was better to find a balance between engineering and art design,” said McCabe who will graduate from Kendall in May.
McCabe, who was awarded a student excellence award this week by the Kendall College faculty, seems to have found that balance.
"I'm looking forward to beginning a new phase in my life,” said McCabe, who is considering a design position in Winnipeg, Manitoba.