ISSUE #14: Favorite Brand – Best Made Company

BEST MADE COMPANY IS DEDICATED to equipping customers with quality products and dependable information that they can use and pass down for generations. I can spend hours with the Best Made catalog reading and learning about the history of every product they offer. Each item is carefully selected for both its usefulness as well as its story and style. It is an outstanding example of form meeting function.

The company was founded by designer Peter Buchanan- Smith who held stints as an art director at the New York Times, creative director at Paper Magazine, and worked for musicians such as Philip Glass, Brian Eno, and David Byrne. His graphic design work on the album “A Ghost Is Born” for the alternative rock band Wilco even earned him a Grammy. His first book “Speck: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things,” which studied the often deep and meaningful connection people have with everyday objects, helped him come up with the idea for Best Made Company.

For Buchanan-Smith, that everyday object was an axe. When he moved to New York from his hometown in rural Canada a beautifully crafted axe would be his reminder to stay connected to nature and use his hands to create extraordinary items. Encouraging people to get outdoors, while equipping them with well-crafted tools and reliable information is the foundation of everything Best Made makes and sells.

Today the brand’s offerings have grown to include maps, bags, blankets, apparel, and adventure vacations for the ultimate Best Made experience. You can find me on any given weekend in the autumn, chopping wood for our Hood Canal home fireplaces with my Best Made axe that Courtney so thoughtfully purchased for me several Christmases ago. In addition, their toolboxes and strong boxes are a staple in our house, ideal for storing everything from hardware to memorabilia. All of these items, crafted so extraordinarily, will undoubtedly become family heirlooms.

By all means, check out their website, sign up for their catalog, and when in New York visit their brick and mortar location in Tribeca. The holidays are right around the corner…