Maybe they were bored. Or perhaps they’d had too much sun. And not enough sleep. But when George Wilkins and Will McCallum were asked to come up with an end-of-year project for their University of Otago design paper, their minds immediately went to helicopters.

“We started mucking around with the laser printer and came up with kitset wooden helicopters, which somehow worked,” says McCallum (now 27). The pair ended up selling them as a fund-raiser for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter.

As befits their laid-back style, they ‘fell’ into making wooden swings for friends. The classic comment of “You should sell those” led to their doing so. If their business, George & Willy, has been something of a happenstance, then their pared-back, handmade objects are anything but.

Ranging from clothing racks and trestle tables to leather wall pouches and brown-paper wall rollers, the products that emerge from their Mt Maunganui HQ are simple, durable and highly functional.

“The company was born out of our desire to make stuff that we like,” says 26-year-old Wilkins.

“But mostly that we need,” chimes in McCallum. Case in point: the wall-mounted brown-paper rollers, which are some of their most popular items.

“We needed something for our workshop where we could write daily reminders but discovered no one was making them,” says McCallum. So they put their heads together and, along with the company’s industrial designer Jarred Christison, came up with the matte black or white steel holders which adorn walls around the globe, including in London and Amsterdam.

“We make things that make our daily lives a little bit easier or a little bit more exciting, and it’s usually something we can’t buy anywhere else,” says Wilkins, who shows me the pair’s current obsession – a leather jewellery box which started life as a present for McCallum’s girlfriend.

The friends, who met at school in Hamilton when they were 15, dial up the wow-factor with their “uncomplicated but over-engineered” pieces, handmade by a team of six at their Bay of Plenty workshop.

“There’s nothing on our products that doesn’t need to be there but, at the same time, we make things as strong as possible so they’ll last.”

It also helps that George & Willy’s delightfully eclectic range isn’t born out of a desire to make money (although the rent has to be paid and there’s always another surfboard or pair of skis to buy) but, rather, to have fun.

Hence the skipping rope, the customised 2008 Honda CT110 motorcycle and the sleek fire-starter. The latter was inspired by a similar one McCallum saw while working for his New York-based uncle, architect David Howell and, later, designer Jim Zibic during a year’s sabbatical to the US.

“It seemed such a sensible idea – no mucking around with kindling and newspaper. It’s how Alaskan whalers from the 18th century would light fires but we’ve redesigned it for the New Zealand context,” says McCallum.

Ditto the motorbike, which is an old postal delivery bike their team picked up on Trade Me and then customised by powder-coating it and adding details such as leather mudguards. They’re currently on the lookout for similar bikes, retired by New Zealand Post when they clock up 30,000km.

The pair sources most of their materials within New Zealand and works with a local engineer to create prototypes. They’re not big on making plans but say they intend to keep doing what they’re doing as long as they – and their global customers – enjoy it.

“We’re still young but we love working for ourselves and coming up with creative solutions to everyday problems,” says Wilkins. “I can’t see that changing anytime soon.”