every else

Membership Emergence Project <every else> at Samsung Electronics Seoul R&D Campus Innovation Studio

Cask‘Guaranteed to change’

Cask is a natural leather furniture brand that treats wear not as a flaw, but as part of the product experience. Through leather CMF (Color, Material, Finish) research, the surface is designed so that
a user's accumulated time reveals itself beautifully. We propose a new natural leather experience — one that doesn't grow worn with use, but grows more complete with use.

Seyeon Park, Wanhyeok Choi, Hwain Lee, Sol Kwon, Yeongsil Yoon

Background

An attractive but
delicate material:
leather

Leather becomes more supple and its color and texture deepen with use. Because it is a rare material that becomes truly unique only as time passes, it has been cherished for a long time.

However, due to its high price and concerns about damage, people tend to be cautious when purchasing leather furniture. This is especially true for furniture like sofas and chairs that come into daily contact with the body.

Solution

What if we could redefine damage to leather furniture as a new kind of style? Not an experience to avoid, but rather
deeper one.

From a CMF perspective, we research the surface treatments of natural leather to design,
in advance, the beauty that emerges as it wears. Introducing Cask,
a leather furniture brand completed by its users' own time!

▶ The full brand story

Guaranteed to change

Concept

The finish of natural leather consists of
a dyed layer that gives color and
a coating layer that covers it. This finishing process protects and seals the surface. By contrast, Cask proposes
a finishing process based on the premise of peeling.

The color pattern is absorbed through dyeing rather than printing, and the thickness of the layer above it determines how the surface peels.
See the Designed Living Finish process, where the graphics beneath gradually emerge with use.

▶ The full CMF research

Brand Identity

Resembling things that slowly mature

Cask borrows the language of aging from worlds where time itself is the value,
like whiskey or wine. We found our answer in cultures where waiting for something to mature is part of the pleasure itself. We applied this grammar of patience to leather furniture and brought it into the home.

Where time leaves its label

Cask means an oak barrel used for aging spirits.
Furniture that holds graphics waiting to be revealed plays exactly that role.

Every maturing thing carries a story, and that story is recorded on the product in the form of
a label. Using graphic language inspired by the rivet points and label grammar of real oak barrels, Cask turns wear into the product's narrative.

Product

A surface worth waiting for

Just as there are aromas and flavors that only come with long waiting, we design leather surfaces that mature over time. When you choose your pattern and the colors inside and outside the leather, the colors and shapes you chose gradually emerge as wear progresses.

Traces of use layer over the combination you chose, and every surface matures differently.

Cask, even in
unseen places

Cask applies the same detailed design to places that aren't easily visible. From the bolts connecting the brackets to the end caps of the chair legs and the curvature of the backrest, the rivet point of the symbol repeats throughout.

Cask's furniture is divided into a frame and a removable leather seat. A fully matured seat can be removed and kept as an object in its own right, and a new seat can be attached to start again. The moment it fully matures is not an ending, but the beginning of the next one.

On the buckle of the strap that joins the leather,
the Seal Marker is engraved with the story unique to each product.

Aged Since
— the date this leather began aging
Edition No.
— its number in the edition

A pairing for every body

Cask's furniture is divided by body. Sofas are Full-bodied, taking in the most body and time at the center of the living room. Chairs are Medium-bodied, holding one person's place for a long time.
Stools are Light-bodied, moving lightly anywhere in the home.

Application