Designer to Know: Manjiro Design

Adam Manjiro Lesser found his way to design by following a love of music. "The thing that led me to design was guitars," says the furniture maker. "I thought I was going to be a luthier." After growing up in a house of musicians in Newton, Massachusetts, he began handcrafting his own guitars in high school and eventually enrolled in industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design with the intention of polishing his craft. 

Upon plunging into the broader creative world of design, however, he says, "furniture took over." He moved to Brooklyn and found work as a cabinetmaker to make ends meet, while gradually building a portfolio of exquisitely detailed tables, stools, and benches, including some with shapely radiused edges and slick brass details.