For Episode 8, we chat with Tom Chung, a designer working for Umbra, a Toronto-based homeware design company. He is the creative lead of their product line Umbra Shift that will be launching in Vancouver August 5th, 2014, at Vancouver Special. We talked about Tom’s childhood growing up in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano; his adolescent interest in architecture and working for Campos Leckie; when he realized industrial design was actually a ‘thing’ and his industrial design education at Emily Carr University. Tom shared with us about how he hyped himself on the Internet while battling the flu, leaving Vancouver to work in Toronto, and the difference between the Toronto and Vancouver art and design scenes. We spent the second half of our chat talking about Umbra. We talked Umbra Shift and got the low down on Tom’s two week sourcing adventure through Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. He dished details on how they selected designers to work on the collaboration. We also talked about the trials and tribulations of getting the booth setup at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair(ICFF) and how it felt to win the Editor’s Award for Accessories.

Contact Tom

• Tom’s Website
• Tom’s Instagram
• Umbra Shift