OUR STORY

The DKD story

Beginnings (2008–2014)

David, the youngest of three children, studied BSc Agriculture (Wine and Viticulture) at the University of Stellenbosch. Knowing that he wanted to pursue a creative direction, this seemed like the correct choice. From his first year his mind kept returning to his entrepreneurial sense – something instilled in the children by his father, himself a chemical engineer with a variety of business interests, ranging from tree farming and hotelier to pioneering computer software development in the late 1980s. David's first product, bar chairs made from waste timber on the farm, was made as a student during term breaks. His mother would sell his products, and this is how he earned his first pocket money – the business idea being born.

A short stint as a winemaker followed, first at Hamilton Russell Vineyards in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley and then at Firestone Vineyard in California. Whilst there the urge to start his own business became too big, and he had to trust his heart. The DKD journey started in 2008 when David (age 22) made the decision to move back to the family timber farm in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, where he grew up, and pursue his dream of starting a business focused on adding value to timber. The early years were spent on the farm, developing his techniques and finding his feet, gradually growing over six years to a team of three self-trained artisans.

An early entry into what was at the time the major local design competition, the 2008 Eskom Energy Efficient Lighting Design Competition, set the tone. These were the beginnings of new LED technology, and David built the LEDs from raw components, allowing wood and lighting to be combined for the first time. The resulting wooden chandelier won the professional category, and the R40,000 cash prize allowed David to buy his delivery van. Soon after, in 2009, the product was nominated in the top 10 of the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa (MBOISA) at Design Indaba, resulting in his first magazine features. The commercial rendition, the Dome pendant cluster, became his first product to sell in multiples – and this funded the start-up.

The growing demand for his work forced a move from the farm to Johannesburg. By this time he had won several local design competitions, with one of his earlier works, the Haywire, even being featured on the cover of Wallpaper* magazine. The well-known South African gallery Southern Guild represented him at various international exhibitions, winning the "Object that Moves" award for one of the best commercially performing items being represented. With the increased focus on David's work came the need to supply his growing market – a traditional and manual approach needing to be balanced with the desire to become a more capable and fluid designer.

Jeppestown and the Joburg language (2015)

By 2015 David was working with a group of 18 young adults. The move to Jeppestown, Johannesburg, and the sudden, intense interaction with multiple commercial customers resulted in an influx of business. With lots of work and ready hands the business started taking in more people. Knowing from the start that the business had to teach and develop its own skill, the team was able to learn quickly.

Some moments of inspiration: the UK, Germany, and then back to Jeppestown. Whilst looking at the production videos of international aspirational brands setting the standards, and viewing the competition in London, David knew that he had to lift the bar. A trip to Ligna in Germany to look at CNC technology brought back disjointed feedback – the capital investment needed to cross the barrier was unsustainable. With an exhibition deadline ahead, a simple but versatile concept came to mind, all possible on a 3-axis machine. One week to design and make the proof of concept, Kas 1 – the starting point of the Joburg language.

With the language and method in hand, the business bought its first 3-axis machine in July 2015. The first execution came within a month: 100% Design, with DK as the feature designer. As always, David mustered his team and they pushed themselves to the limit. With a month to execute, David dedicated himself to seeing what he was able to achieve in this short timespan by devoting himself to one goal – a full immersion in the language, executing 19 new pieces as the first demonstration of the newly dubbed Joburg language, and winning Designer of the Year.

Foundational years

The following years turned out to be foundational. With the newly discovered method of production all design challenges seemed exciting and doable. They wanted to take on everything. Prototyping ran wild in the factory, and custom design challenges were the next client away.
During this time David developed a very strong relationship with two key customers, Nando's and Workshop 17. Nando's has long been a supporter of South African design, and David was one of the first designers onboarded onto their African design portal (today known as Clout SA). They played a pivotal role in a supplier development journey and supported the business by offering a constant order flow.

David met Mark Seftel, the co-founder of Workshop 17, by a coincidental tree felling. Mark wanted to utilise a pin oak that fell down after a Johannesburg storm in his family's garden, and David was referred. Mark and David immediately started working together. Mark was taken by the DK design ability and was keen to incorporate this into his workspaces – the initial project being Portswood at the V&A Waterfront. Several projects later, the co-development of their desking solution is what allowed for volumes. These customers became the bread and butter of the business.

From furniture to buildings

Having come from a timber farm with the dream of developing a product range to utilise the Saligna that his dad was growing, David knew that structural timber was the only scalable option. With the production method in hand, the team executed their first architectural prototype: a chapel, built for a couple that was working for the business at the time, on Mark Seftel's family property in Morningside, Johannesburg. This was the proof of concept that the Joburg method could be applied on a larger scale.

Soon after this David met Jasmyn Pretorius, the seventh-generation granddaughter of Andries Wilhelmus Pretorius. Jasmyn, a graphic designer who had just left her career as an art director at TBWA, had a dream to start a business on the original family farmstead in Hartebeespoort. David and Jasmyn's dreams aligned. With a Cape Dutch reinterpretation design drawing, David convinced Jasmyn's father, Dries Pretorius, in a spur-of-the-moment decision to construct Kleine Rijke – this just after realising that the existing storeroom on the farm wasn't going to service the guest list the family needed to host for the planned wedding of Jasmyn's younger sister, the date only three months away. What was going to be a modest renovation turned out to be a full-scale architectural rebuild, with David's architect sister, Anso Pollard, providing the architectural guidance to run the frantic construction. Three months later the building was standing, showing the work in this context for the first time. The project later won a Grand Prix Loerie for Architecture in 2019 – confirmation that Jasmyn had left her advertising career for a greater pursuit. Kleine Rijke would also later become the venue for David and Jasmyn's own wedding in March 2021.

Growing pains and finding structure

With the added pressure of increased business operational requirements coming head to head with the creative ambition of a young mind, the business became a challenge to handle. What used to be a one-man show expedited with David at the helm became unsustainable. With his core interest not rooted in systems or process flow, David's natural affinity was to deflect – returning to creativity and an everything-is-possible mentality, often resulting in a backlash of organised chaos transpiring into obsessive amounts of time spent burning the midnight oil in the workshop.

By this time David had relocated his factory to the southern flank of Victoria Yards in Bertrams, Johannesburg – a 2,700 square metre factory with 70 employees. David realised that solving the operational requirements had to be the focus. For the business to succeed, structure had to be implemented. A recommended read by a trusted advisor, a book titled The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt detailing constraint theory, became the basis and lens for looking at production.

At a family reunion David met a distant family member, Lizenka van der Walt, an industrial engineer with a passion for constraint theory. Through a trade exchange she started working with the team, implementing basic systems and methodologies to track and prioritise workflows. The business functions started working in sync. Having worked through a three-year consecutive below-breakeven financial position, the business started turning a profit. The business had paid its schooling fees and the ship was moving in the right direction.

Covid (2020–2021)

March 2020, Covid lockdown. At this point the business was set up to flourish – several large projects on the go and the bread-and-butter customers placing repeat orders to sustain the workflow. Production had to stop. The business was not well placed to handle the storm that was about to hit it. Almost all customers were corporate entities; POs were cancelled and rollouts stopped. With no online shop and no visibility to online consumers, sales dried up. The 2020 financial year saw a 50% drop in revenue. With the next big project only a step away, David held on to preserving jobs too long. By early 2021 the business was in financial distress. With the market recovering slightly at this point, the business was still not able to shake the liabilities built up during this period. It became obvious that the business had to raise capital to stabilise the ship. With a team of trusted advisors willing and able to help, they set out to raise the required capital.

Liquidation

David and the team set out to raise capital and had several investors interested, but with the historic performance it was difficult to show proof of a viable business, as investors only look at numbers. Amongst this group was a party of three investors: Anthony Orelowitz, Mark Seftel and Shragga Jameson. They believed in David and his vision and didn't want to see the business fail. As the due diligence was underway the position of the business became clear. The three-month process had dragged on too long and David's time ran out. From a business perspective it didn't make sense for them to invest in the old business, and the decision was made that they could not support it. David was forced to place the business into liquidation. The dream came to an end.

A new chapter (2021)

After this, the same group of investors made an offer to support David to get back on his feet. David had to make the decision to either start from scratch or take up the offer of support. His vision was too big, and he could not get away from the fact that he needed the support if he was going to build a new business. In September 2021 the new business was formed, David Krynauw Design (Pty) Ltd. Within this entity Mark and Anthony became hands-on involved. Everything started fresh, with all aspects of the business being re-evaluated. With Mark's affinity for systems and Anthony's knowledge of what it takes to run a design business, they were the perfect mentors to restart this new chapter.

By this time most of David's team had been snapped up by his competition, the market knowing what skill they possessed. Then came the fight for his intellectual property (the designs that make up his body of work), which was successfully defended.

David started with a small team in a 110 sqm space – the old milk shed on the Pretorius family farm, next to Kleine Rijke, that he first had to clear. Himself and a core group of seven makers – Nhlanhla, Bruce, Lumicane, William, Lungile, Sithokozile and Nkosinathi – restarting the day-to-day operations. Starting from scratch, with basic machinery funded by the first order the new business was able to take in. A humbling experience, needing to fulfil all business tasks himself, taking him back to basics and using outsourced suppliers for the functions that couldn't be performed in-house.

The opportunity then came to buy the assets that belonged to the original business. A hotly contested bidding war came about, and in December 2021 the new business managed to buy the assets. This gave the new business the ability to regain its capacity, whilst also recovering some beloved prototypes and sentimental items in the process – along with a historic collection of offcuts that would later become important to the story. This first factory was set up in an industrial building just outside Atteridgeville, about 15 km from Kleine Rijke.

Rebuilding as a wood technology business

New design software, the exploration of an in-house developed ERP system, a custom in-house developed website – building the business with a best-in-class software approach and dubbing it a wood technology business. Taking a product from mind to market in a single workflow, with a clear focus on enabling creativity to be rapidly expressed.

The need became clear to establish two businesses: DKD, the design business, and DKM (DK Makers), the manufacturing business, each having their distinct focus. DKM's goal is to act as a player in the South African manufacturing sector, solving the challenges related to what it takes to produce high-quality designer products at scale – with the goal of servicing more than just DKD's products, but the broader design industry. DKM also carries a strong focus on skills development and transfer, continuing the business's tradition of teaching and developing its own skill.

After two years of active participation, Anthony, as an act of goodwill, offered the opportunity to be bought out for his original capital investment, allowing David to increase his share in the business. This came after Anthony's own business, Paragon Architecture, demanded more of his attention within its international growth strategy. He remains a trusted and beloved friend to the business.

Hartruk and the heart material (2022)

In August 2022 David was given the opportunity to collaborate with Clout SA and the Keiskamma embroidery artists at 100% Design Johannesburg. Moved by the will to make something of the offcuts saved from the previous business, David designed the Hartruk range, set to pluck at the heartstrings of the spectator – finger-jointing this material into a mix-match of grains, making up what he called his heart material, currently actively being incorporated into his standard staple furniture. This exhibition was taken to Cape Town Furniture Week, winning him the Designer of the Year award.

Granger Bay Pavilion (2023–2025)

In 2023 David was granted the chance to present a design proposal to the V&A Waterfront for the Granger Bay Pavilion, set to display and launch the future Granger Bay development planned by the V&A as part of the greater Thomas Heatherwick-developed masterplan. For David this was the biggest project to date – a real chance to fully develop his building methodology for a serious customer. He set out on a six-month dedicated development journey with the goal of utilising Eucalyptus saligna grown on his dad's farm as the principal material in this execution. The building was completed in July 2024, just after David's 40th birthday. It resulted in a successful, fully contained building, effectively manifesting the company's ethos – Ontwerp (design), Bou (build), Boer (farm) – taking a product from seedling to end user. This project was later awarded the runner-up position at the 2025 annual Scape Awards in the category of Sustainable Build of the Year.

Skeerpoort and real capacity (2025)

By this time the business had grown close to the relative revenue levels achieved by the previous business, with a team of 35 people working as a much tighter organisation and the majority of the old maker team members gradually returning to work together again. The need became urgent to move into a better factory. An earlier meeting with Bruce Pearson, a seasoned manufacturer in the greater local area within the board and carcass press industry, provided the answer. At the initial meeting Bruce's business, Devin Doors, was operating in its 10,000 sqm facility in Skeerpoort, North West – an optimal campus set up by Bruce in his generation-old business. With Bruce needing to scale down as part of the natural cycle of his business, David's business became the ideal tenant, and Bruce agreed to make space for DKM. In early 2025 the factory relocated to Skeerpoort.

With this ideal facility, and years' worth of on-site experience offered by a group of seasoned veterans within the industry, this quickly became the ideal setup. Decades' worth of collected parts became the pool of components to build out the new factory with minimal need for capital outlay. With Bruce's assistance and oversight, DKM has been able to establish real capacity to take on the market. At this point the exploration of software matured, with the team implementing an end-to-end business ERP system, truly enabling the scalability of the business. Some more trusted historic makers rejoined the business. Things fell into place. The call was then made to invest in the business's first 5-axis CNC machine, making everything possible from a design perspective.

Cape Town (2025–2026)

During Cape Town Furniture Week David and Jasmyn combined their design talents again. Jasmyn executed her first graphic reinterpretation of a set of historic illustrations obtained through a trade exchange, combining this with David's classic works along with some organic freehand executions. The reception for this first-time combination was phenomenal. During this visit it became clear that they had to relocate to Cape Town. With the setup of the business falling into place, David and Jasmyn set their eyes on leading the market in the South African design industry, and doing this from Cape Town. In December 2025 they relocated, leaving their trusted and fully capable team to head up production.

With projects on the go in Cape Town, and the recent execution of the Ladybacks facades – a coordinated building project in Sea Point – the year has been pivotal. David and his team are currently planning the opening of the first showroom, located at 80 Hout Street and set to open in May 2027. The brand is set up to take on the future.
Product development has continued at pace. The recent development of a firm favourite, the Dreamscape Chair 20, into a fully developed flat-packable retail product is a new and exciting development. Alongside this, the Heerenzicht range, developed at the end of 2025 and introduced at Cape Town Furniture Week 2026, saw 10 designs executed in a rapid development spurt, showing what is possible.

Looking ahead

The classic range of products is the backbone of the business, allowing the realisation of the dream. These are the high-quality classic favourites that the customer base has come to know and specify for projects around the world, and they fund everything else. A strong focus on exposing the market to what this range offers is the starting point. This includes the outward interaction with existing and new customers to realise the potential it holds, both locally and internationally.
Jasmyn heads up DK Interiors. This portion of the business focuses on graphic design and the softer elements – fabric design and associated products, along with a line of wallpaper offerings.

The business hopes to achieve a bigger scale by building out the Bou portion of the business – expanding its capability and offering of building products, with the potential for large-scope commercial projects. If this can be achieved successfully, the aim is for it to free up the creative potential of the entity, allowing it to take on an ever more expressive and developmental position towards product design, as this sits at the core.

David has now stepped into the role of CEO of the business, with Mark remaining an equal shareholder, trusted advisor and non-executive board member.

David views the business not as a personal mark of achievement but rather as a life mission, supported by a team of remarkable individuals, that has humbled him to the point of living in the full faith that God has given him the opportunity to work with his hands. The original bio from 2008 still rings true:

"The opportunity to realise one's creative passion has always been important to me. In our modern society, we seldom get the chance to question whether what we are doing is something that truly brings fulfilment.
Designing and creating unique furniture is what motivates me. I have always had the aspiration to accomplish something different with my life. While exploring the art of woodwork I discovered the perfect way to express myself.
As a young man I feel it is important to be responsible in doing my part to conserve the environment. This is why I grow trees on my farm on a sustainable basis. My medium and long term goal is to produce most of my furniture out of salvaged wood or timber that is grown in my forests. Uncompromising attention to quality, detail and originality is what sets my work apart. A desire for a fresh approach leads me to experiment with different shapes and forms to produce unconventional and inspiring pieces. The bulk of my work consists of original and unique creations, and the focus is on establishing a synergy between client and product as opposed to mass production."