SWITZER CULT CREATIVE & DOUGLAS COUPLAND TEAM UP: SWITZERCULTCREATIVE

Douglas Coupland, seated at his lacquer-coloured 'Bento Box Escritoire'. Says the author-turned-designer: 'I like escritoires because they exist purely for writing and nothing else'.Portrait photography: Ema Peter

When not busy writing a novel or two, and creating commissions or other works of art, it would seem that Douglas Coupland has found another niche through which to express himself: designing. 

With thirteen best-selling novels under his belt, novelist and Wallpaper* contributor Douglas Coupland has now turned his hand to furniture, launching his first collection during the Interior Design Showin Toronto last week. Entitled 'Douglas Coupland for Switzcultcreative', his range comprises five key pieces: an escritoire that emulates the proportions of a Japanese bento box, a writer's chair, a bookshelf, a table lamp and a standing lamp, designed in ode to his own workspace where all his literary magic happens.

Given his impressive literary pedigree, you can be excused for forgetting that Coupland actually trained as a designer. The Generation X author graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, with a focus in sculpture, before going on to study at the Hokkaido College of Art and Design in Sapporo, Japan in the 1980s. 'My writing can be split into fiction and non-fiction, and the same can be said about my visual work,' he says. 'Design is simply the non-fiction version of art.'

To read the full article by Pei-Ru Keh from Wallpaper Magazine and see more works in the collection visit: http://www.wallpaper.com/design/author-douglas-coupland-designs-a-new-furniture-collection/6312#74938