James Langford and Larry Tchogninou are the two halves of the Chicago-based creative studio known as Points of Sail. Taken individually, each artist could easily be described as a modern-day renaissance man without the risk of hyperbole. Their creative outputs push the boundaries across the disciplines of design, engineering, architecture, furniture, painting, sculpture, apparel, footwear, and even fragrance. And you thought Steph Curry had range.
When James and Larry were invited to join Virgil Abloh’s Nike Re-Creation Center as mentees in 2019, the idea of working together didn’t take long to materialize. Both created furniture for their final projects, and soon, a one-off collaborative living room collection developed into a close friendship and long-term creative partnership.
Their design work is as varied as it is ambitious. Most recently, they were wowing crowds at ComplexCon ‘24 with their design of the Jae Tips x Saucony booth (their third such booth for Jae Tips). Like all their work, it was rich with detail – from the flower shoe displays, to the actual flower beds, to the custom built furniture. In the same breath, they’ve also supported students in the village of Ganvié in Southern Benin (Larry’s country of birth) by designing not one, but three 30-person capacity boats to provide daily transportation to and from school.
We could go on and on about how awesome James and Larry are, but we decided it might be more interesting to hear from them directly. The two were gracious enough to share their time with us and answer some questions.
Here’s the full interview:
Here’s the transcript of the interview if you prefer reading:
ghostwrite: Thanks for sitting down with us. Can you both introduce yourself?
Larry: Okay, cool. My name is Larry Tchogninou, I’m a multidisciplinary creative based in Chicago. I’m originally from Benin in West Africa, born and raised. I have a partial degree in architecture, and I’m 1/2 of Points of Sail.
James: I’m James Langford. I’m an artist from Chicago, currently getting my master’s degree in architecture at Harvard GSD and also one half of Points of Sail with Larry right here.
gw: How would you describe Points of Sail to someone that you just met?
J: We’re a full stack design agency with a background in architecture, but we touch everything. So this spatial, branding, logo, object, you name it, we can handle it.
gw: There’s a nautical theme to Points of Sail, at least in the beginning of your work, how did that come to be and how did that evolve into this kind of multi-disciplinary agency?
L: James and I met through a program named the Nike Recreation Center with Virgil Abloh. It’s a Nike and Virgil program. That was in 2019, and he (James) made a chair for his final project for that mentorship program, and I did a chair too. So we were like, we should make a chair together. And we started bouncing ideas for a long moment, right. At the moment we’re like, Oh, what if we make a chair that gives the feeling of floating? Pretty much. So we designed this really nautical design inspired furniture collection. It’s a chair that is inspired by trimaran, a lamp that is inspired by the mast of a boat, and the waves table. So that’s what we designed and it became a project. But you know, like there’s some of those projects that you do or people that you meet one night, for example, and you meet them, you talk to them, and the vibe is so good. Oh shit. Like we have so much more to say again, like, let’s meet tomorrow, You meet tomorrow, you keep talking and oh, yeah, let’s meet next week again and you keep meeting. And so Points of Sail became an endless conversation. So we just named the company the name of the first collection that we designed, which was Points of Sail. So it’s almost like the one song on the album that becomes the name of the whole album pretty much.
J: It’s like the one art project that kind of spiraled out of control where we showed what we could do. That’s how the agency was born. Super organic.
L: Yeah, but also this just going to bring back the idea that the name is Points of Sail, right? We don’t know shit about how to sail and we wanted to take something that is like so far away from our reality that any time we go there to design furniture for ourselves, right, we always are amazed by whatever the references are. So that’s where it came from.
J: Yeah, but Larry you touched on something really important there. The initial genesis of it was that we started with trying to pull from something that we were really unfamiliar with, to take that almost like infantile, childlike approach where we can look at things with fresh eyes and then hopefully bring new solutions.
gw: I like that. How the name is kind of a bookmark in time, right? For when you all started and met and that very first collection and then it kind of evolves from there.
Given that all of the categories and disciplines that you both work across and pursue, what are you most excited about right now?
J: Well, this. This past year I started my graduate studies at the GSD, so that’s been a full time job and a half, you know, like 110% of my energy is there. And then we’ve somehow managed to squeeze out the rest and work on our projects together as well. So yeah, this, this new, not new but new formal pursuit of architecture. It’s funny, the whole time I’ve known Larry since 2019, he was like at the beginning of his architecture education. Then he finishes his undergrad and then I go to school. So one of us has always been in school the whole time. It’s literally just a funny reality of like to the perpetual student hood.
L: It’s just a big swap. Yeah. And I would say for me on the other side, since I graduated in December from the architecture school and right now I’m just like living this full time designer, independent designer and life in a sense since you asked me earlier, like, “Hey Larry, how are you?” I just told you I’m living the dream. I’m living the dream. Yeah, but the dream is also challenging because it goes with other stuff like you got to make this thing work. We’re working, on incredible projects. Projects that are going to open up, like some of the craziest doors. We are working on right now. So we were super excited about it. But at the same time, also like that independent life was almost like taking you far into the big ocean. You got to figure out where to go.
gw: I’m curious, what would you say is the weirdest project that you’ve worked on?
L: Oh my God. Can I say ghostwrite?
J: That’s the most different for sure. It was. It was really different. Right.
gw: So how does a Points of Sail ghost fit into the broader Points of Sail ecosystem as a design studio and why get into, doing a ghost now?
L: That’s a good question. I feel like the way I see this ghost, right, is an extension of the second collection of furniture that we had because the graphic that is on it, it’s this exploded view of all the pieces. So you have the Hull Chair, the Navigation Lamp, as well as the Keel Shelf. So I’d say that this ghost in this is an extension of that furniture collection, almost like a new piece of it in terms of sculpture that people can have in their home.
J: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of a homeware, isn’t it? Is it a collectible? Is it functional? I don’t know.
gw: I like the view that you guys have and the design of it. It’s a very homeware designed object and I think that’s kind of what I would expect from Points of Sail. A lot of your projects, your furniture pieces right, are furniture pieces; functional, but they’re really also beautiful art objects in and of itself. I think that the Points of Sail ghost as well as the packaging, you kind of want to have it up on your shelf. You never want to open it. It’s a true collectible, you kind of want to just have it there and display it. I think the design of that speaks to it. So it’s a really good homeware is a good way of doing it.
L: Yeah. And also like we talk about the waves on the packaging, also the content, it’s so us, the water, you guys been killing with the content, how it gets into the water and comes out and the water flows and like it just reminds me of wanting to be a vacation. Just watching this video, though and I just want to know the water right now. Very much so.
J: And it’s like a kind of fun new approach for us, where everything we’ve explored thus far has been architectural, formal exploration, industrial design. And this was just a canvas that you gave us, the object, and we had to make it feel like us. So it was a fun exercise and a new way of expressing the narrative, the identity. I love the texture of it. You feel the dots on the box, like actually topographically.
L: There’s another story behind the name. James you got to tell the story. The name story.
gw: Tell us a story of “Skip” and why this ghost is named “Skip”
L: You got to tell that story and how we found Skip and how Skip become part of the family in this thing.
J: Can I flip the camera? Is that a thing? No, I’ll do one of these. (James turned his camera to show a dog lying on an area rug, playing with a ball) That’s Skip and I was living on the West side of Chicago, August of 2020. Like right around the time we were gearing up to release this collection. We had been working on it for of a couple of months leading up, and I was in a gnarly rundown type of building, but I had all this square footage. I had a big side lot, all the space in the world for super cheap. When we moved in there, the kitchen was just a PVC pipe. We had to put everything in. But one day over there I was just working in the shop in the back. I had my headphones on. I was cutting some wood on the table saw, and I looked out into the yard and it was just a little dog out there. And I had never planned on really owning one and keeping a dog, but I just couldn’t leave her there, you know? And because we were in the summer of COVID, the heat of COVID at that time, you couldn’t just take her to the shelter right away either. So I had to keep her with me for the night. And then after that, I couldn’t let her go. But she didn’t have a name for the first couple of days or anything. And it was literally the week we were shooting all the content for that first collection of furniture, gearing up to release it and I had this dog with me. So I had to bring her with me down to the marina when we were shooting all the furniture. She was there, barking at everything. She was a little nervous, and that’s kind of where it came to me. Just like the Captain, the Skip with all the boats and furniture. And so that’s always been a special name for us.
L: So the ghost, the ghost has a good reference name. Story behind the name. Yeah.
gw: We’d love to hear more about, the specifics of the design of the ghost, right? The graphic artwork that’s on the chest, the wind logo that’s on the foot. Everything seems very kind of intentional and tying back to this brand. So just walk us through some of these design elements and the choice to put them on the ghost
L: I’m gonna start with the front graphic, right. Which is on the belly, pretty much that represents a graphic. It’s an exploded view of the furniture pieces that we designed for our second collection. So it is a lamp, a chair and a bookshelf. So this is pretty much an axonometric exploded view of all the pieces together. We have the deconstructed Points of Sail logo here that is a little more crazy version of our normal logo that’s more manga inspired pretty much. We have the Morse code on the top that is pretty much like a crown. The Points of Sail icon here at the top and at the bottom here we have the wind. This is something that we reference a lot in our graphics. Technically a point of sail is a graphic that shows you where you’re on the water, where the wind comes from and how you should place your sail for the wind to push it. And so it’s a specific graphic and its name like that. We took inspiration from that to name the thing obviously. But on that graphic, there’s a specific place where it shows you where the wind comes from, depending where you are. So we always take reference for that element in the place that’s at the bottom of it. So it’s a piece that fits in our system and also the packaging. James, you want to go over the packaging a bit?
J: Yeah, like Larry said, it’s kind of just all the elements of our whole language that we’ve built up over this time, on the exterior, you see a half tone wave pattern. It’s just all the little motifs that we’ve built up over the years that feel like part of the identity of the furniture, of the brand, whatever you want to call it. That the packaging puts it beautifully because that half tone print feels like bumpy, topographic when you run your hand over it. That was a really cool surprise.
L: Yeah, exactly. Really. There’s that texture. It’s almost like 3D printed, pretty much. Yeah. This whole thing feels super effortless, right? In the sense that’s the way we designed this thing and how we made it. But I can tell you, it was days of discussion about, what should we do? I remember when you sent the CAD, we’re like, okay, what should we do? Because it feels as if, we were lost, but we’re wondering, this project is so different from everything else we’ve done before. What way should we approach it? And we looked at other people you guys, were working with, we did some specific characters and some made more abstract stuff. I’m thinking, how do we make this thing good and also look like us? And that was a real, I won’t say fight, but like a real deep thought process. And we kind of figured out where to land.
J: I mean, like we said before, we’re not used to getting that canvas already provided for us. In architecture, we’re the ones designing that. So it was cool to figure out how to fit our language into an existing system.
L: Yeah, jumping in on that. I would just say, in architecture and design, right? They don’t give you the canvas. They give you fibers to build a canvas and you guys have the whole canvas ready and we get to paint over. So now, okay, you did half of the work. Like, what do we do right now? How do you paint it? Where do we start painting? It was a lovely exercise, though, all the way. And it came out great.
gw: We love the booth that you all designed for Jae Tips and Saucony at ComplexCon this year. How long did something like that take for you all to produce, going from, first sketch to manufacturing or installation. We know how the entire process you guys are really in it from the beginning to the very end. So walk me through that, that process.
J: Well Jae Tips, to start with, Jae Tips is family. So whenever Jae Tips calls, we pick up. But he likes to work fast, a little faster than we’re comfortable with sometimes. So I think, I think that booth in particular from the start of the convo to opening the doors, it couldn’t have been more than four months.
L: Yeah. Three maybe. Yeah, three, maybe say three because the conversations start really early, early September or earlier.
J: But that was, that was the biggest scope we’ve done thus far, highest production value, everything. And it’s just, you know he always comes to the table with such a built out color and graphic identity already. It’s so fun to work with him and bring those ideas to life spatially. So it’s always a blast doing that.
L: And I would also say that Jae Tips – it’s not like we met Jae Tips at the last ComplexCon – we’ve been doing ComplexCon project for him for like three years now. And even before ComplexCon, we did some projects and pitched for him before. So the thing is, he’s growing in his design career at a really fast pace, which is impressive, but also to the work that we are doing with him, we are growing with him too. So it’s a client and a friend that we are growing with. As the time passes because every year the budget get bigger, the delivery, the deliverable gets bigger. And every time the expectations get higher. They want crazier stuff every time. And he becomes the main attention of ComplexCon every year.
So we are growing with him and as we work with him our portfolio also evolves like that. And the trust is just crazy. He comes to us with some specific ideas and says, “okay, I trust you guys to make it magic.” For the first ComplexCon he came to us with a booth – he came with a model of the booth. The second one he came with some drawings. This one I think he came to us with a sketch, pretty much like a graphic, and said “This is what I want to do. Bring it together.” He never holds our hands. He just says, figure it out and that’s what we do. We showed him ideas, he made changes. It’s not even crazy changes all the time. And then we run him by the team and they make it happen in production. So he’s lovely to work with. Like some of the best people we work with right now.
J: And this past year we got the runner up best booth of the year from Complex, which I think we deserve #1 if you ask me.
L: Facts.
gw: Would you say it’s more challenging to do something for another brand and their perspective versus your own?
L: We have four foundations when we do a client job, 1) problem, 2) context, 3) solution, and 4) benefit. Pretty much we try to understand the problem of the person. We go with the context, because each person is different. We’ve got to understand where they’re coming from, what the brand represents, what they’re trying to do and then propose a solution that matches that. And from that, there’s a specific benefit for that person. So when we we design, we are contextualist designers when it comes to client work. In our own projects we have a style already, we have a stylistic approach already to Points of Sail projects, our furniture is inspired by nautical design. But when it comes to a client job, we don’t do that because we don’t want to slap nautical design on every person’s thing. No, we don’t want that, it wouldn’t even make sense at all. You know, like what the fuck does Jae Tips have to do with boats. You know what I mean?
J: We created this agency out of a demand that came from clients approaching us. But what we started with was our style and our projects and our thought experiments. So both of those, both of those are different. You can’t approach them in the same way.
gw: What are some of these other brands or individual designers that you are as a collective or together are really being inspired by right now in contemporary times?
J: I can think of a couple of the top. From the Points of Sail lens, the people who me and Larry talk about the most. Ben Edgar, has been a mentor to both of us and the best at what he does. Tom Ducarouge, out of Paris, incredible furniture and spatial designer. Oh Hyunseog from Nice Workshop out in Seoul. Another incredible artist pushing the boundary of materiality and furniture. What kind of collectible design can mean? And then one who we don’t know, but I’m a huge fan of is Soft Baroque. It’s this design collective, I don’t even know where they’re from, but they do all the like, spatial design for Kiko Kostadinov. That’s how I found him, through all the Kiko x Dover Street Market installations. And it’s just these gorgeous metal pieces that are folded and curved and bent, manipulated, with, such a sculptural quality that it doesn’t look like they’re doing in 3D, like to me. If I had to guess how they were making it, I’d say they were cutting paper up and then just mimicking it with metal. It looks so fluid and organic.
L: I would say, I would add a big one too: PLAYLAB Inc. Of course. Archie and Jeff. Those are big people. These are people we look up to a lot. They’re really at the agency level of how far can you bring things, what is the scale of a project that you can work on with those people? I would say them. Of course Virgil, with all he has done. And now my phone is at 1% and its going to die right now.
gw: Before your phone leaves us. Is there anything you all want people to know or think about right when they see this ghost? What do you want people to know or think about this Points of Sail ghost in general as it comes to be available next week?
L: And I would just say quick that this thing comes from the heart, right? It’s the ethos of what we are building here at Points of Sail that is concentrated into one single product and we are super proud of it. (Larry’s phone dies)
J: Yeah, man, this is like a time capsule from a moment in time from where we were when we started this conversation to where we’re at now. It’s like that, that period in brackets, you know, the more permanent version of when you get like a sticker from a brand at a certain time when they were doing this one art style, but, we’re evolving people and our conversation is evolving, but we think this is such a cool stamp of where we were at from this period.
gw: Yeah, I like how you phrase that. How Points of Sail in and of the name itself, right. How that comes from these early conversations, this ghost is a point in time and I am excited to see the next Points of Sail ghost and what that point in time looks like. And then how this will evolve over time.
Thank you both so much for taking the time, talking to us, walking us through, who you guys are, the ghost in general. The specific ghost details that are, I think, are really impressive parts of the design. I’m really looking forward to this auction coming up next week, seeing how it goes and more to come.
Everyone here, stay tuned. We got a lot of Points of Sail, future product coming in, so
J: Our pleasure man.
gw: Thank you!
ghostwrite 