Smile Plastics

Image courtesy if SmilePlastics.com

Founded by Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather, Smile Plastics mission is to create beautiful and useful surfaces out of waste materials.

Born out of the clever combining of design expertise, across jewellery and industrial sectors. With Adam having over a decade of developing handcrafted panels out of various waste materials and Rosalie having received great accolade in the Ethical design sector for her work creating jewellery out of sustainable materials.
The results are stunning, and from first spying some of the beautiful surfaces at a LDF trade show way back, to following their developments since, we are big fans at LA!

The more I looked in to their design process in detail and discovered the vast array of waste materials they use the more intrigued I have become. From medical waste to coffee grounds, each panel is made by hand with each piece carefully placed before pressing, making every panel unique.

So apart from the fact that 100% of the materials used are recycled, which makes them a very sustainable options, what are the benefits of these surfaces? Well as we said they’re beautiful and all unique, but they are also VOC free, totally waterproof, easy to look after and incredibly hard wearing. What more could you want?

While a lot of their work being commissions, both private and commercial, there is also Studio Smile, a capsule collection of lifestyle pieces. Kept simple to let the beauty of the material shine.
Commissions of note, to date they have worked with an impressive array of consumer brands including Jigsaw in Covent Garden and Selfridges (on many departments). In these projects they create bespoke surfaces for display tables and shelving, sometimes even feature wall panels.

One of our favourites is their work creating panels for Sanremo’s Verde coffee machine out of old coffee grounds. Very apt and the finish is spot on!

Another fab project is Smile’s collab with Hej coffee, creating a coffee pod using recycled coffee panels and plastic bottles at the Societe Generale offices. In this case the result is a bright multi coloured surface that adds a playful edge to an otherwise paired back area. They also created a series of modular panels that for a pop-up coffee pod for external events. 

Their clever use of recycled materials and the quality of the finished article is fantastic, the fact you can choose so many bespoke options and really create something truly unique to you is a further bonus in our eyes. With our eye firmly on sustainable designers, we look forward to seeing what else Smile creates in the future and to hopefully working on many projects with them in the future!

Go check them out at www.smile-plastics.com