Todd Bracher has created everything from glare-free lighting to clothing made of cork. When designing, he says, “I study very carefully how people interact with objects, and I try to capture what’s meaningful in that exchange.” He subscribes to what he calls “irreducible complexity, boiling a thing down to its most fundamental aspect,” so that an object consists of only what is essential to its purpose.

With the Distil Desk, he studied how one interacts with a work surface and asked himself “Why are table edges so sharp?” Remedying this obvious, but rarely addressed, issue led to the creation of folded edges that are easy on the arms. He continued asking questions: “How can we make it lightweight and structural?” Molded plywood was the answer. “Where would a carpenter hide the wires?” They would thread them through cutouts in the cross-stretchers. In this way, constraints drove creativity.