Hasta La Ideas

Irony: In years past, one could use Google to find Mike & Maaike. In the years to come, it may be the other way ’round.

The husband-and-wife creative team of Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers, better known as Mike & Maaike, first hung their shingle seven years ago. But interestingly enough, at first the experimental design duo purposely avoided seeking clients—and income. “This allowed us to establish a voice and an approach that is experimental, authentic, and optimistic,” they explain. “We wanted it to be clear that we were starting a design studio, not just a business.”

Google came calling just a year later, and the result was the Mike-&-Maaike-designed G1 (later rebranded the HTC Dream), the first smartphone to run Android. And while the pair subsequently continued to crank out projects for other clients like Belkin, Steelcase, Incase, Coalesse, Fritz Hansen and others, as well as (literally) self-driven projects like their ATNMBL, it was the Big G who quietly acquired them earlier this year.

In advance of the 2012 IDSA Conference, Simonian and Evers kindly carved some time out of their busy schedule for a quick Core77 Q&A.

Don’t forget to REGISTER TODAY for the conference; registration closes on Monday, August 6, at midnight EST.

IDSA International 2012 Conference
The Future Is…
The Westin Boston Waterfront
Boston, MA
August 15–18, 2012

Clockwise from top left: SWARM for Council, G1 with Google, ATNMBL transportation concept, Android Smartphone.

Core77: Is there a clear-cut division of labor between the two of you? Are there aspects of a project that Mike would prefer to do more than Maaike, or vice versa?

Mike & Maaike: We are both exposed to all aspects of the projects that we work on and have overlapping roles. We have very different backgrounds and this is what brings an interesting broader viewpoint to the table. We are fortunate that we are able to work together so well and are able to ask each other some tough questions. We often don’t agree with each other and we believe this makes the work better and increases its depth.

Short answer: We work together on everything, including answering interview questions :).

Your work encompasses products, technology, furniture, environments, transportation, and more. What are the challenges from category to category, and is there one you prefer over another?

We see no distinction and have no preference in terms of different categories. Each project, rather, comes with its own challenges and excitement. We do gravitate towards projects where there is an opportunity to move the category forward into interesting new territory.

Rather than the subject matter determining a set of categories, we prefer to think of projects in terms of their potential for progress. Conceptual projects can be extremely interesting because they often lead to new ways of thinking about old problems and can define the future. Projects that involve new technology inherently lead to this sort of progress because emerging technologies always need to be interpreted from the perspective of the user.

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