Shant Madjarian; Juniper Design, Founder & President

Here at The List, we’re curious about the culture of design, so who better to survey about the field’s current state than those currently working at the top of it? In Need to Know, a weekly column, we pick the brains of best-in-class creatives to find out how they got to where they are today—and share an insider perspective on the challenges and highlights of their particular perch in the design world. 

Shant Madjarian, founder and president of in-demand design firm Juniper, has had a career trajectory that’s been at once nonlinear and full-circle. Hailing from a legacy of lighting designers, the Montreal native defected from his predestined path in favor of studying economics at McGill University, where he received his masters degree in the subject. Madjarian worked in finance for some 15 years—and loved every aspect of it—but couldn’t rid himself of the nagging impulse that he should try his hand at a more creative and entrepreneurial approach. Among his varied business proposals—”one of them was a bakery, which I was very passionate about but just couldn’t make the numbers work”—Juniper was the one that stuck. Madjarian’s journey might just illustrate that the apple—even when taking the road less traveled by—doesn’t fall far from the tree. Surface spoke with him about life before Juniper, advice for young professionals, and why brass—as a material—reigns supreme.

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If you want to start off by telling me a little about life before Juniper…

I studied economics; I’ve got a graduates degree in economics from McGill University; born and raised in Montreal.  I grew up in a family that was very entrepreneurial. My father and mother had a business—still do—in the lighting industry. [So] I wasn’t fully a stranger to the industry itself. It operated very much like a family business. But, it’s a very traditional business, a traditional lighting, mostly contract hospitality, that type of thing.

I was not interested in the business at all. I pursued other interests. And after I got my graduate degree, I got to economics, research, and then ended up at a bank in New York. Ended up in investment banking, so did about fifteen years in financial banking. I was mostly working with large corporations, helping them to understand their business, corporate profitability, and so on. And really, just kind of interesting, because it has nothing to do with what I’m doing now, but in some ways, it sort of comes around.

How did Juniper come about?

I took a couple of classes, and I ultimately decided on going the way of design. And I wanted to do a multiline, multicategory business, just focusing on interesting designs, working with designers. Very naïve, to be honest with you, up front. Just a kind of slow start. And I thought, give myself two years, and if it didn’t work out I could always go back into finance. And, two years later, it was a weird spot I didn’t really plan for. It was on one hand, things weren’t so hot, and but I was also in a position where I couldn’t really get out. I had taken out a couple of large, custom lighting projects. As it turns out, we needed to fill the shop. Or needed to do something. And while we’re developing product, I just couldn’t get myself out of it. I was still very motivated, but just, it was tough times. As during any business. But in the meantime, we really set the foundation for something that I had envisioned, long term. It just wasn’t turning out that way. When things finally did turn around, it was fast. It happened suddenly.

Lo and behold, a couple of trade shows later, and the market was getting a feel for what we do, and vice versa. And then, the business started taking off. And, we just continued doing what we we’re doing right, and stopped doing what wasn’t working. And here we are.

We talked a little bit about Juniper’s origins, but take me through the time in which we left off until today. What has that journey been like?

When we launched the business, I met a couple of people. David Irwin’s just this young, newly graduated designer from North Umbria University in New Castle. And we just hit it off; we shared notes. We ended up talking about a lamp he had done for a school project, or something of the sort. And it was really this cool, little miner’s lamp, re-envisioned as a battery operated, mobile task lamp. And, I took that on—I loved it. I ended up developing that with him.

At the same time, I met this guy Peter Bristol, who is now the head industrial designer at Facebook by way of Oculus. At the time, though, he was working at an industrial design firm in Seattle that then got purchased by Facebook. But he was a very curious guy, he did some designs for Microsoft through his firm, and so on. But just a really cool, down-to-earth person. I just saw this design he had online, searching the web. And I talked to him, and he responded, and he said, that’s a pretty cool one, no one’s making it right now, but I got this other idea. And it was a task light. And it was this really thin, you know, the Juniper task light. And, it looked really cool. And, of course, I had just the right dose of naivety at the time, to think, oh I could do this. Not thinking, how do I get LEDs in there? How do I get hinge work? How do I get the thing turned on? None of that, just I love it.

I went full force into both of these products, both of which were very new things that appealed to me. Stuff that hadn’t been done before on the market. And, of course, because of that, they’re also very difficult to do. That was a lot of the reason why things took a few years to really take off. But in both cases, both served a very important piece of the Juniper story. And, on the M-lamp side, with David Irwin, it really brought us into the design world—it won like, five design awards, highly coveted, so many stores who were willing to carry it. It got into the MoMA store, into Cooper Hewitt, and it was published in every single magazine I could think of. Full page, front covers—across the globe. It really put us on the map, in a lot of ways.

What, if any, advice do you have for young professionals in the field?

I would say, [to] people coming into the industry, I would encourage them to explore areas of lighting, and interiors that are underserved. That have not yet been disrupted by design thinking and creative ideas. And to take that segment, to bring in new ideas and to change that around. And I think that could be really helpful, and very fruitful at the same time. You get the satisfaction by solving problems as a designer. You get the satisfaction of making a statement and impact in the industry, as an individual designer. But you don’t get stuck in this, sort of, I made a credenza, it’s gorgeous, it has brass inlays. I worked five hundred hours for it, and that’s I got one credenza, you know? I think that’s what I would I say, be entrepreneurial and don’t let the business patronize your art. Or don’t fall into the trap of thinking that business patronizes the art of design.

I know we touched a bit on your upbringing, but I’m wondering specifically—thinking about Montreal and the specific architecture of that city—if your upbringing influenced the way you design, experience design, or think about design? 

Yeah, of course. Okay, from the parents’ side, two things. On their very functional side, I think of my dad as the brass man. Everything was brass, and it was such an important material. It’s the best material in lighting. He was quite snobby about it too; he liked the [real stuff] better than the plated versions of it. I learned a lot from him there. Just overall, metal and metal finishing was something that, was so key and central to what they did. And that is the one piece, I would say, that has carried over into Juniper.

Montreal has its own culture. I would say probably one of the most unique and different cultures in North America. The language does create a bit of a barrier, and with all it’s trials and tribulations, I think that, culturally, that has been a positive for the city. And it’s not a place that is very visible or tries to claim a lot of attention. It’s not New York City. It’s not Los Angeles. It’s not Toronto. It is very understated—and it likes to be and feel that way.

And when it came to New York, it felt like, that was something that shocked me. New York is this big place and you gotta make a big statement. Especially, nowadays. Restaurants are enormous, and they’re so decked out, and everything else. And I never was good at being center of attention. It’s true with my family, we talk a lot. We have a lot to say, we have a lot of ideas, but we’d probably rather do it in the back of the room than on stage.

I think Juniper, and not by accident, is that way. We have a couple of pieces, like the chandelier, that are pretty out there in terms of statements they can make, but our products are secondary in a room. And they’re meant to be that way. They’re meant to be accents. It’s meant to be something that people notice only in the back of their minds, right? Subconsciously. And, for us, we like to be there; it’s the kind of place I think we shine, no pun intended, the most. 

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(Photos: Courtesy Juniper Design)