There I was, sitting alone, thinking about our future.  

It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s going into 2015. I was reflecting on the business, our goals, and new strategies.  

Amuneal’s reputation and business had grown by partnering with retail clients. We worked to understand their brands, products, and customers. We engaged on these projects during the earliest phases of ideation, striving to be a generous and egoless collaborator. We invested our resources into the upfront design process with the understanding that we would recover these investments through the continued fabrication of the elements that we designed, and through repeat collaborations.  

This was the economic formula of our business.  

However, the pressure in the retail world was changing, and impacting the conversations that our customers were having with us. They valued our design contributions and the development of well-engineered manufacturing packages; however, to drive their costs lower, they began to ask us to teach other, lower cost suppliers, how to produce the designs we had developed. This was a huge shift, one that threatened the scalability of our business.  

I began considering how the creative energy we invested in our clients could be better leveraged. Rather than invest our design capital in designs for others, we could shift to invest in developing our own products. I envisioned products that would resonate with residential, retail, commercial, and hospitality clients looking for products eliciting the same emotional impact that defined our projects.  This effort would move us out of our comfort zone, requiring us to take authorship of our designs, the quality of our work, and to define our voice.   

To develop products that felt uniquely Amuneal, we would define them through their materiality, level of detail, and a blend of precision craft with the same sense of soul we always worked to imbue in our work. We would grow our offerings by developing products to fill a series of white spaces where Amuneal designed and branded products would inspire customers looking for beautiful unconventional options.  

From our work in retail, we knew the value of clean, easily adjustable shelving systems that are one part function and one part styling.  This seemed like the perfect first introduction for us, a product so aligned with our experience, that taking authorship felt natural. 

To begin development, we defined the necessary ethos for our products.  These pieces needed to be inspired by the past, timeless in their presentation, with pragmatic details eliciting feelings of a more romantic time where decorative details were rooted in functional benefits. Amuneal’s designs would need to be defined by high craft, authentic materials, and the evidence of hand that we worked so hard to make synonymous with the brand.  

We displayed our first product, “The Collector’s Shelving Unit”, in March of 2015.  We were excited… and nervous. The reception that we received was more than we hoped for. Not only did our clients show interest in the new designs, but four of our largest customers purchased units for their spaces. This success fueled our confidence and deepened our commitment to develop more products, thus helping to shape the future of the business. 

Following that success we deepened our offerings, expanding our shelving systems, introducing a line of custom kitchens, bars, wine rooms, metal and glass doors, lighting and furniture. Today, our products are specified for residential, commercial, retail, and hospitality projects around the world, and account for nearly 80% of Amuneal’s revenue in these markets.