231 Thompson Studio | Revitalizing the NYC furniture shop

My goal is to bring custom furniture manufacturing for my network of NYC brands from NY to Providence in order to streamline the manufacturing process, and reduce time and cost for brands.

This migration, in effect, will bring job opportunities to Rhode Island local businesses (lumber shops, truck delivery) as well as career building CV credits (and part-time income) for RISD grad students and alumni in the Industrial and Furniture MFA programs.

Both of these groups (local businesses and designers) are struggling to prepare for the impact of A.I. on their careers, which inspired me to meet with Karen Harris, RISD’s career development leader several times this year to find a way for me to fix this problem.

Brands are now being pressured to skip over creative agencies, or the “middleman” and work directly with designers. Here’s why:

• Mass production, fast turnaround and custom sizing are often KPI’s for brands, which are costly and time consuming, and tend to be overlooked during a whiteboarding session.
• Furniture that blends in is often harder to find than furniture that stands out — in other words, most furniture designers price their work as ‘fine art’, which is a challenge for art directors and project managers who are under a time constraint and a tight budget.
• Brand marketers are asking art directors to purchase “locally sourced materials” in order to show their love for their community.
• Due to increasing cost of location, lower marketing budget for brands and fewer trades workers (see research in Pete’s Medium article), NYC brands are beginning to skip the traditional creative agencies, or “Middlemen” and partner directly with designers.

*231* and *Thompson* became synonymous with NYC local furniture design between 2014 and 2018, and has since become Etsy’s flagship table designer for 3k+ families in North America. My vision is to revitalize the authentic furniture brand I created in Greenwich Village, using Rhode Island warehouse manufacturing space, local blue-collar trade workers, a team of award winning designers from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). 

Simply picking up where I left off as a B2B designer in Greenwich Village (pre-Etsy). This time only reaching back out to my network of Fortune 500’s (ask for list) with a safety net of affordable shared space (Soda Glass House, Reliquarium, AS220), a local backing of Providence commercial artists who have partnerships with national brands, and 24+ RISD students, alumni and professors who follow me on Instagram and have been encouraging me to relaunch for the past year.

• Build long term relationships with my existing network, and additional Fortune 500’s in NYC
• Use the key phrases: “custom, locally sourced, made in NYC” and “Established in 2015” to help build trust with brands
• LinkedIn gets me fast responses, Etsy’s product designer sent me a fast response a few years back. I have a big enough social presence to get attention
• Collaborate with my 24+ followers from RISD for facilities, consulting and labor, as a safety net (shared space)
• Partner with local friends and small business owners who have been encouraging me to work with them directly, and follow in their footsteps
• Use local grassroots marketing (ProJo, Brown Daily Herald and micro influencers) to help 231 Thompson Studio create a local grassroots following

Where our custom furniture will be most in demand in NYC 🗽

• Brand Activations (Experiential events, Pop-ups, Campaigns)
• Live Media (Entertainment, Sports, News)
• Brand HQ’s (Headquarters w/ High Foot-Traffic & Operations)
• Creator Economy & Influencers (Creator Events & Custom Personalized Furniture)
• Retail (Apple Store, H&M, Walmart)
• Food & Beverage (Shake Shack, Whole Foods)

Why we will keep getting Callbacks

• I’ve personally worked with some of the top brands in NYC, including Victoria's Secret, FYI.tv, A&E and more.
• NYC is a unique part of the country that most furniture designers intentionally avoid, and it’s been our home for 5+ years
• We’re doing the grunt work that high end furniture agencies choose to opt out from
• Custom sizing and materials allows us to charge top dollar 
• Local sourcing and drop offs or pickups, reduce our competitors to those within 200 miles
• We’ve established a trusted relationship with northeast material suppliers
• We have access to tools, teams and work spaces at RISD and Brown that will improve our credibility and allow us to scale fast
• We don’t need to schedule sit down meetings with creative directors or marketing teams, we’re simply a service provider and can chat with a project manager and work off a planogram  
• We aren’t looking for promotion, which makes deals easier to close

• Scale our reach to the entire Northeast
• Expand our designs to include an umbrella of designers from RISD (Glassblowing, Sculpture, Fine Art)
• My wildest dream: Become an on call furniture designer for the top musicians in the world 🎸

What RISD helped me discover is I do have a voice that Gen Z creators want to listen to, 24+ followers. The students who follow me are my new equivalent to an equity adviser or even a co-founder, they’re climbing up the ladder fast and they’re checking in on me to see if they can help.

That’s it for now friends… it’s 11:30pm on Tuesday and I’m prepping for a vacation with my bros in Narragansett tomorrow. Cheers for now! 🤘

pete taylor

8/2026