Joyful, expressive design for everyday life
UPPERFORM started as playful experimentation. Testing shapes, colors, and ideas to see what would come out. Over time, this became a method for designing playful objects that carry the same curiosity for people who want color and personality.
THE FACE
Hey, I’m Noam Shamy, the designer behind UPPERFORM. I love colorful, expressive objects. And the beach.
Although I’m the only one working full-time at UPPERFORM, the work wouldn’t exist without the friends, collaborators, and fellow creatives who contribute along the way through conversations, support, and shared curiosity.
UPPERFORM is small by choice. And collective by nature.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Design at UPPERFORM starts with play. The process begins with curiosity. Asking “what if?”, and exploring form, color, and material until something unexpected emerges.
3D printing allows ideas to move quickly from sketch to object. It makes it possible to test proportions, textures, and materials directly in real space.
Even though the technology allows endless repetition, we decided to limit each object to a series of only 100 items. This way, we can maintain artisanal quality while keeping the process agile and experimental.
Every piece is printed, finished, signed, and packed by hand in our Amsterdam studio.
SUSTAINABILITY
At UPPERFORM, sustainability is treated as a practice, not a performance. Choices around materials, packaging, and production are integral to the design process. Rather than aiming to scale endlessly, we work through limited edition collections. This keeps the pace slower and makes experimentation with alternative sustainable materials possible.
As a small studio with limited resources, we sometimes have to make compromises. What matters is staying honest and transparent about the process, the materials used, and where things can still improve. Sustainability, for us, is about making thoughtful choices, again and again. Our goal here is progress, not greenwashing.
MATERIALS
A lot of time has gone into researching and testing materials to reach the desired balance between quality and responsibility.
For the Can’t Bite This collection, we used recycled PLA that is 100% biobased. The jewelries are made from PLA filaments made with recovered industrial waste.
Scallop, wheat, coffee grounds. Materials that would normally be discarded become part of the surface, leaving visible traces of their origin.