[ep 106] Chad Falkenberg & Kelly Reynolds on Unconventional Paths, Creative Evolution & the Power of Travel

This episode is part of a live conversation series between @wearethecraft and @IDSVancouver, recorded at this year’s show on the @Vicostoneglobal main stage. On September 27, we sat down with Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds of @FalkenReynolds, one of Vancouver’s beloved design studios, to explore the lives and experiences that came before the design. Because neither path for them was particularly straightforward. Kelly grew up in Richmond surrounded by sports, construction, and a father who spent his career in the VPD, while Chad grew up on a chicken farm in Alberta, surrounded by horses and a family connected to construction. Their paths to design were anything but linear: Kelly moved through the military, policing, aviation cabin crew, and eventually interior design. Chad studied business, lived in Lithuania for seven years, travelled extensively through Europe, and found his way to interior design in Barcelona in his 30s.  Woven through those experiences are the early influences, from materials and buildings to making, movement, sport, and the natural world, that would quietly shape the way they see and create. And we explore the evolution of Falken Reynolds, too. In the early days, Chad and Kelly were immersed in the making: building, experimenting, meeting new people, and learning as they went. Today, their roles have shifted. They lead a team, bring ideas together, and increasingly act as quarterbacks of the work. Then there’s their annual travel (they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro one year!). We talk about the places that have shaped how they see, the value of travelling without work in mind, and the pull of getting off the road and into the unknown. Of making something, being somewhere completely different, and experiencing a place without needing to turn it into a project. It’s about the winding paths that lead us to our work, and how the lives we build outside of it inevitably find their way into what we create. Please enjoy this conversation and Q&A these wonderful, one-in-a-million friends of mine, Chad Falkenberg and Kelly Reynolds. Much love, May Sound engineering: @alikadong Photography: @mrjeremywong Marketing support: @maizmcknight