At this year's International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), the number of low-priced offerings were evidence of a tight economy. Another less obvious trace of the recession was apparent in the number of new designers who’d bounced out of other disciplines. This new crop of talent is pursuing risks they might not have if the recession hadn’t forced them to look at what they really wanted to be doing. Here’s a tour of four new firms who switched paths and gambled on a career in design.

Joseph Ribic, 31, spent years toiling away as an architect, always thinking about furniture design but never pursuing it. “I came to a point when I was turning 30 and I knew,” Ribic said. “I had this dream and I had to do it.”

Ribic's older brother, John, was running an industrial manufacturing plant for aerospace clients—but the orders were drying up. So he agreed to lend his extra resources to realize his brother’s vision, and they now work together as Objeti design.

For them, the gamble paid off: This year, they won the ICFF editor’s award for New Designer, beating dozens of hopefuls. Their signature is “The Aerialist,” a line of aluminum coffee tables that transform into cushioned benches. They hope to make about 100 of the Aerialist coffee tables this year, at $1,300 each.

After months of sketching and prototyping later, Herbst produced the “Zen Wagon,” a reinterpretation of the little red wagon. The wagon ($319) is made of formaldehyde-free bent birch plywood, natural rubber air-filled tires and won’t corrode from moisture. The floorboard is curved for better support. The idea sprang from watching mothers in the park pushing their kids in highly-designed and ergonomic strollers. He realized no one had turned that same attention to the basic children’s wagon.

Herbst’s gamble seems to have paid off: he was recently tapped by Crate and Barrel to design pieces for it’s modern offshoot, CB2.