By simplifying the form, straightening out the curves, and flattening the planes, abstraction, and distortion are very friendly tools to extract the silhouette of a real object.

Pablo Picasso’s particularly famous The Bull left its mark as the most prominent example of this method, which was defined as Cubism then.

The Bull

The abstracted and distorted form artistically echos grado’s pursuit of minimalism design. Also, the cubism art movement was highly expressive since it challenged Renaissance depictions of space, namely it challenged the fairly realistic perspective in creation. Based on this, grado finally decided to initiate a tribute to the movement with our own abstracted furniture design, namely Swell Sofa.

Swell Sofa Sketch

As a designer brand from China, we always keep our Chinese identity in mind when elaborating on any new product. We specially selected Yuanbao(or Sycee), a gold or silver ingot currency used in ancient China, as inspiration for the design of the sofa.

Swell sofa has a round and full body shape and uses a moderately soft high-resilience sponge. From the visual appearance to the sitting experience, people can feel the gentleness without edges and corners and the sense of embrace like a hug. The integrated backrest and armrest of the Swell sofa present an “inward rolling” profile, implying that contemporary young people are expected to rethink their personal needs for wealth and the definition of success in a vicious and fiercely competitive living environment and return to a comfortable spiritual space and home space.

The fashionable and casual appearance of the Swell sofa makes it rich in space adaptability and can be displayed in a home space, commercial space, office space, etc.