Tag: designer

Q&A with Minale-Maeda

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?
“A great concept and a business plan. And both work together.”

Here’s what Minale-Maeda chose to revive–8 of these ordinary mirrors:

Could you tell us something about how you came to your proposal?
“We asked ourselves how could we make this leftover as popular as possible?…actually pop: glamourous…sexy. Something sadly disappeared makes a comeback to center stage as object of desire: put on glorious sunglasses.”

Has the brief brought something new to your body of work?
“Usually our work is very much about material culture – researching story and meaning of things. This brief required us to be really straightforward and to ask what attractiveness is and what the most appropriate way to achieve it is.”

What is your opinion on this approach to design?
“It’s about the core values of things and it is central to our work.”

“In a way this is real limited. Hurry!”

Q&A with Stefan Sagmeister

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?
“Loved the overall idea of the objects bought from bankrupt companies and said yes immediately.”

Could you tell us something about how you came to your proposal?
“I immediately picked the wallet. Because I am so tall myself, I like small things.

We had produced communication projects like magazine pages and a giant building wrapping with the same sentence before (Money does not make me happy). To transform a proper product utilizing it was just a natural extension. And the multiple folds of the wallet allowed for various readings of the sentence.”

Q&A with Marije Vogelzang

“I covered the spoon with different layers of silicone in various textures. In this way it seems as if the spoons are covered with cake batter. I like the possibility of silicone to make a very textured surface and play with this idea. It gives the spoons a less slick appearance. Food itself is seldom slick.”

Has the brief brought something new to your work?

“Most of the design I make is, at least partly, made of food. This design is completely non-food. It might seem a big change but in fact, dealing with silicone has a lot of similarities with cooking. It’s all about consistency, adding the right amount of hardener etc.”

What is your opinion on this approach to design?

“I am intrigued the idea that all the products that Droog bought are from bankrupt companies. I wonder where my spoons came from. To have to use these spoons as a starting-point does change your way of making a design. At least it did with me. The idea that the amount of products are dictating the number of the series is an interesting one.”

“I’m so curious about what happened to the dog baskets!”

Q&A with Atelier Ted Noten

Ted Noten saved by droog

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?

“Actually our attention directly went to the most “stupid” objects. We questioned ourselves: is this really an object that is a leftover of an auction? It sounded a bit poor! We are looking forward to Droog’s next project when they rework expensive ‘leftovers’!”

matches ted noten saved by droog

Could you tell us something about how you came to your proposal?

“Once we accepted this idea, we felt sorry for the safety matches. Their message is so sweet, securing you to lighten up safely. How can people not fall in love with them? We thought an homage to these matches would be the best way of comforting them. Instead of changing the object we wanted to add something… like the three bronze brooches! Three stars as a symbol stands for quality, and in military terms, three stars are symbol of power and honour. Next to the three bronze stars we designed a candle in a bomb shape to play with the idea of taking risks by igniting this bomb! We would like to see lot’s of people igniting a candle in Milano! We love generals!”

(Don’t worry this will soon become clear when we show the design).

Has the brief brought something new to your body of work?

This approach of designing something for so called “leftovers” we liked very much. We had to make quick decisions because there was hardly time left and all the products had to be produced very quickly! The whole procedure was a challenge for both Droog and us! In no time we saw our product be realised! This is the way we like to work!

Q&A with Erna Einarsdóttir

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?

“It is pretty clever to not let all these things go to waste and, coming from Iceland, I think we could have used a project like this over here. I am sure  many things are getting thrown away from empty offices in Iceland.”


How did you come to your proposal?

“I was thinking about how worthless dish towels are–they are one of the few textile based items that we purposely don’t care about staining and making dirty. It’s the purpose of the towel to clean up after us in the kitchen and I never see a used towel that doesn’t have some kind of stains in it. So I thought it would be nice to make something that would make the towels more ‘worthy’, and that they would lose this ‘towel’ feeling and become something completely new.

I think most people have thrown a dish towel over their shoulders after cleaning the dishes so I felt it would be nice to keep that element. Now they can still throw the towels over their shoulders but this time they won’t feel like it´s just another worthless towel.”

Did you surprise yourself with your outcome?

“I am definitely surprised that I could take a dish towel and make something nice from it. I would never have chosen to work with it in any of my work.”

Q&A with Maison Martin Margiela

Maison Martin Margiela

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?

“Maison Martin Margiela felt completely in line with this project as our approach to design is about transformation to create a new context. Since its beginnings in 1989, Maison Martin Margiela has been gathering garments, accessories, used and sometimes new objects across the globe. That these garments and objects may be given a second life whilst respecting and maintaining the traces of the passage of time and use remains one of the keystones of the creative expression of the Maison.”

Moustache guard cup

“Enjoy your drink, without a milk moustache!”… we’ll show you Maison Martin Margiela’s addition to 11 of these cups soon!

Q&A with Mieke Gerritzen

Mieke Gerritzen

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?

“Well, my first reaction was…..that it is a really great idea! To boost the designs of Blokker and the Makro, to really take serious all the industrial production of design in the world. At the same time I thought…. the person who got this idea of saving all the design junk and to bring it back to another level of design and reflection is a genius. No matter what the designers do with it. The idea of pimping up the mainstream is a great statement. It’s not about design these days, its about the message.”

Vest

Stay tuned to see how Mieke revived 50 of these safety vests.

Q&A with Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes

What was your initial reaction when you read the brief?

“There is a kind of weirdo excitement we get in a thrift store. Basically you’re surrounded by junk that someone else didn’t want, but there’s a thrill of looking through that junk for the hidden gem … for that one thing that you see value in that was overlooked by others. This is urged by a slightly desperate desire to find it before anyone else does, and tempered by recognizing that it is all, after all, largely junk. So reading the brief and looking at the pictures was exactly like that.”

chair

Has the brief brought something new to your body of work?

“Yes, the chairs particularly … this is very new for me because I only conceived and gave directions for the work. I know many people work like this but I’ve never done anything before that I haven’t actually put my hands on in some way. At the moment it feels very liberating, but we’ll see how they turn out!”

Stay tuned to see what Marian did with 80 of these folding chairs and 1 dining table.