On March 9th, we held our first Open Studio in four years. It has been so long since we hosted one, that we forgot how fulfilling it is! Our business looks a lot different now (March 2024) than it did back in February 2020. As you can imagine, our portfolio has evolved, our commercial working space has transformed, our team has grown, and so much more.
JOHI's second ever Open Studio on Maui, in February 2020
In 2020, we were still based on Maui. The business at that point was comprised of Raja and Holly. We subleased an upcountry workshop that was originally dedicated to building cabinetry. It was about 1,300 square feet and our unit was power central for multiple adjacent units. When tropical storm warnings came, we (Raja) would frantically repair any gaps in the old pineapple hangar roof. We spent our days with a mix of custom furniture design & fabrication, fabricating smaller-scale decorative inventory, and working out how to best represent our business and its goals. It was tricky not having a proper walled-off office separate from the workshop, but we were able to do quite a lot there. Most importantly, subleasing the space and the tools allowed us to get our feet wet while learning the ropes of this business.
JOHI's third and most recent Open Studio in Watsonville, California, in March 2024
As a small business, it’s easy to forget that our everyday surroundings are typically unusual for our community to experience. Even back then, when friends and clients came to visit our workspace, eyes would widen and we’d hear something to the effect of, “Oh wow, this is a real shop!” Now, imagine our ground floor being about 2.5x larger, plus a mezzanine! This is what our current HQ is like in Watsonville (Santa Cruz County), California. To visit a 3,300 square-foot workshop floor in person is miles away from seeing it in an eight-second video clip or a 1-minute email feature. So this past weekend, it was amazing to take our event guests on tours across the workshop floor and end up in the mezzanine office and adjacent packaging area. There, we had about ten hardwood furniture designs on display - showcasing how our little shop takes lumber from our receiving racks through to the finished works.
Just one corner in our Watsonville (Santa Cruz County) studio workshop. Taken a few days after open studio, the build seen here is an 'Ohana Table in progress for a local Santa Cruz boutique.
In 2021, we committed to growing our business in a California workshop roughly 2.5 times the size of our Hawaii workshop. Pictured here are components of a custom project we designed for a client in San Francisco.
Today, JOHI is a team of four - all based in Santa Cruz, California.
- Elijah Clancy (of Square Objects) has joined us as a partner! He brings to the fold experience as an independent product designer and has a background in furniture manufacturing in both Chicago, Illinois and the California central coast. He is also a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).
- Nicole Gardner is soon to celebrate three years with us! She’s using her industrial design degree (San Jose State University) to refine our processes and products every day, and she has grown into our lead finisher.
- Holly Apau Badr-El-Din, who studied the interdisciplinary fields of music science and music technology (Stanford University), is soon to finish an accredited UCLA program in interior design. While continuing to work deeply on the business and brand, she is excited to put her interior design skills to further use.
- Raja Badr-El-Din, who has become our “master” of Lean principles, is pushing our workshop to become more efficient and more trainable every day. He studied product design at Stanford University – and, as our original product designer, he has shaped the core design language of our offerings.
We also deeply value our teammates of the past few years who swiftly took on new projects and explorations in our business. Shoutout to Hannah Eugster, whose eye for natural photography and videography took JOHI to a new level in 2022. Many thanks also goes to Juan Ruiz Gomez, whose commitment to local fabrication energized our workshop processes throughout 2023.
Finally, as with any small business, there is so much unseen work and support that has come from our family, friends, and growing community over the years. Whether you have helped us by way of business advice, painted walls or stairs, ever vacuumed a corner of the shop, assisted in a frenzy of event preparation, sent us a program opportunity, offered us a space to showcase, shared our work, worked with us directly, or lent us your support in any other way – we are ever grateful and will always remember it!
We recently renewed our commercial lease here at JOHI, which brings with it a commitment to growth here in Santa Cruz County and in the nearby San Francisco Bay Area and California Central Coast.
We can’t wait to see where our team takes this small business next!
One more thing: As we have learned over the years, reviews and reflections mean everything. If you’ve enjoyed bringing a JOHI product into your home, or have an experience working with us in the past, we hope you will consider sharing your JOHI story through a review!
- Product reviews can be made on individual listings here on the JOHI website (see all products - scroll down each product page to find the reviews section)
- Google Maps reviews can be made at: https://g.page/r/CSeE1z8Z_I0LEB0/review
- Yelp reviews can be made at: https://www.yelp.com/biz/johi-design-studio-watsonville
Mahalo for being a part of our world here at JOHI. We're always grateful to be a part of yours!
Post by Holly Apau Badr-El-Din • President & Co-Lead
