Graypants

The Graypants Story

Seattle, Washington, 2008. The Graypants design studio was founded by architects Jonathan Junker and Seth Grizzle (and joined later by close friend, Jon Gentry) as a way to get back to what they'd originally loved about architecture: design, drawing and making things by hand.

They used what they found, which turned out to be a lot of discarded cardboard boxes, newspapers and wood. The results were Scrapchairs, Scraptables and the infinitely popular collection of Scraplights. Today, all Graypants products are made by hand in their Seattle studio as well as their newer facility in Amsterdam.

Why We Love Graypants Lighting

Graypants employees, including Junker, Grizzle and Gentry, make daily dumpster dives to salvage the clean cardboard needed to produce their line of modern cardboard pendant lighting. Of all the cardboard material Graypants collects--both from these jaunts as well as regular donations from businesses and private citizens in Seattle and Amsterdam--an impressive 75% goes into the final lighting pieces. All of the individual components taken from the original cardboard sheets are treated with a non-toxic fire retardant and assembled by hand using non-toxic adhesives.

A Fun Fact About Graypants

Graypants lighting smells great. The laser-cutting process used to create all of the lighting components slightly burns the edges, giving the finished pieces a smoky, "campfire" smell when they are new.

Noteworthy Lighting From Graypants

Graypants Scraplights are used coast to coast to illuminate and add atmosphere to cafes and coffee houses (perhaps you've heard of Starbucks?). These hollow lights are made from numerous precisely measured and laser-cut rings of recycled cardboard. From the line of celestially inspired Moon spheres to Drums, Drops and Discs, the finished Graypants lights glow with texture and warmth, celebrating the natural beauty and variation of the chosen cardboard's colors and corrugation patterns.

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