Hasta La Ideas

The renowned graphic designer and captivating emcee sheds light on Cape Town’s Conference on Creativity

As a former speaker in both 2005 and 2010, renowned graphic designer and Pentagram partner Michael Bierut has also served as one of Design Indaba‘s masterful emcees for the past three years. Each day, wearing a shirt and tie matching his cheerful demeanor, he enthusiastically presents the impressive roster of speakers, adding valuable industry insight and witty commentary between presentations. With Cape Town named the World Design Capital for 2014, we checked in with Bierut to hear more about how the Conference On Creativity and the city itself have evolved over the years.

You’ve been a moderator for three years now, how did you initially get involved with Design Indaba?

I was invited several times to present at Design Indaba, but I was never able to go because it almost always conflicted with my daughter Martha’s birthday. Finally, I was able to go in 2005, but I did it as a quick in-and-out. This works for some conferences, but at Indaba, it’s a terrible idea. Everyone, including the speakers, should come early and leave late. Doing it any other way misses the point.

I stayed in touch with organizer Ravi Naidoo after my first visit and I was invited back to speak in 2010. On my second visit, he asked if I could also help out by serving as a co-emcee. I had fun, came early and stayed late, and he’s asked me to come back in the same role in the two years since.

How have you seen the conference grow since then?

Obviously, the attendance at both the conference and the expo have grown dramatically, with simulcast audiences joining in from Johannesburg, Durban, and elsewhere in Cape Town. More importantly it’s grown from being a design conference for insiders to being a galvanizing event for Cape Town and for South Aftrica that’s all about the power of creativity and design.

What are some key moments or speakers that have stood out over the years?

I remember Dieter Rams at the conference in 2005 preaching his less is more aesthetic with precision and passion. Two years ago, I was knocked out by architect Alejandro Aravena: his is the only presentation I’ve ever seen where 15 seconds in I started frantically transcribing what was on every single slide. Last year, Francis Kere from Burkina Faso brought the house down with a presentation that showed how socially responsible practice could support great, beautiful design.

Every year, some of the best presentations are from students. Cape Town fashion designer Laduma Ngxokolo did a line of clothing inspired by African patterns that I still desperately want in my closet. And RCA industrial design student Thomas Thwaites showed a project where he made a toaster by hand from raw materials he found himself. The story was so sharp and funny that I asked for a copy of his thesis presentation and gave it to Kevin Lippert at Princeton Architectural Press. He published it last year, and a month or so ago, Thomas was promoting it on the Colbert Report! It all starts at Design Indaba.

I always come away feeling uniquely inspired after the conference, how do you feel after the entire experience each year?

Indaba is remarkable in that it brings together people from every creative discipline from every part of world to share ideas. People come eager to hear from the superstars, but over and over again, it’s someone you’ve never heard of who blows you away.

What do you think the audience at large takes away from the conference?

I think the conference brings out the best in the speakers. You feel the energy from the audience, and the people on stage really feel an obligation to make a connection. The audience can really sense this, and as a result they come way feeling that they did just sit there and witness it, but they actually participated in it. It’s active, not passive.

Do you feel Design Indaba has had a hand in helping Cape Town become the Design Capital for 2014?

I suspect it may be Cape Town’s best argument as to why it deserves to be the World Design Capital.

How does a conference like Design Indaba foster creativity in the long run?

Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s all about connections. Design Indaba makes connections that last, and those connections have the capacity to change the world.

Re-designed baseball bats at AmDC’s upcoming home invasion-themed show

Just past 3 A.M. you hear an unwelcomed guest in your home. What do you grab to protect yourself? This was the question posed to 10 leading designers taking part in the American Design Club’s upcoming show Threat: Objects for Defense and Protection. Using a raw wood XBat baseball bat as a template, each designer reached deep into their imagination—or nightmares—to envision how they would respond to a home invasion.

The 10 resulting pieces represent a range of reactions. Jonah Takagi and Fort Standard go on the offensive with meat tenderizer-inspired bats, while Paul Loebach‘s ultra simplistic saw blade embedded bat seem equally aggressive. On the other hand, David Weeks‘ wooden rifle takes aim at a more design-driven defense.

Matthew Bradshaw‘s molded bat features a sculpted handle formed to the nervous grasp of imaginary men, the stacked hands resembling the schoolyard competition of hand over hand. Harry Allen teamed with Swarovski crystal on a bat emblazoned with the phrase “namaste”, while Joe Doucet split his bat down the center with a blazing orange streak offering a warning of what’s to come.

Now, AmDC has launched a fundraiser for the as-yet-untitled designs called “Name That Bat“. Donate $10 to submit a name online between now and the end of March. AmDC, along with the designers, will select final titles, and the winners will receive the bat they named.

Threat: Objects for Defense and Protection runs only from 9-10 March 2012 at Brooklyn’s Present Company. Be sure to visit the website to check limited viewing schedule.

Photography by Kendall Mills

Industrial, urban and biological influences for a versatile design studio

Striking a balance between simplicity and intricacy, husband and wife design duo John and Svetlana (Lana) Briscella seamlessly merge their talents in Aminimal, a multifaceted studio that pushes the dimensions of industrial design. Aptly named, Aminimal aims to artfully spin the belief that minimal design comes from constrained concepts. “Aminimal has the word minimal inside but reads atypical, like something different,” Lana explains. Aminimal’s name is also often misconstrued as the word “animal”, a slip that the duo creatively embraces and occasionally integrates into their designs.

After meeting in Vienna, John and Lana set up shop in New York in 2011. Based in Brooklyn, the duo’s designs have an abstract, urbanist appeal. Culling from their travels and dwellings in various cities as well as from John’s academic background in Urban Strategies, Aminimal draws from the grid-like patterns of metropolitan spaces to create customized map mementos. Turning a memorable meeting place into commemorative and, in the case of the NYC Cork Board, functional art pieces, Aminimal celebrates “an emotional connection to the city.”

The couple spent time in Paris before landing in the States, and paying homage to their former haunt, Aminimal tested the limitations of dimensionality by re-interpreting the Louis XIV Ghost Armchair by designer Philippe Starck as a 3D cutout shroud of a map of Paris. Matching conceptual forwardness with technical precision, Aminimal uses a variety of tools. However, they cite their best tool as the “connection between our heart, brain and eyes.”

Initially exploring the energy of intersecting points through lamp designs—namely the polygonal-shaped Contact Window Lighting System—Aminimal added anatomy to the equation with its jewelry line, the Field Test Collection, which is “designed around the premise of structures found in magnetic fields.” The couple also created the Second Skin Watch, which swaps numbers for LED lights. The timepiece answers the age-old design challenge to “make a watch that’s not a watch”, presenting a futuristic study of the human hand’s natural contours, modeled after the flow of pouring water.

Aminimal’s innovative Calibration Stool and its Lounge counterpart, respectively evocative of a porcupine and spiny caterpillar, are made up of multiple wooden legs to create what they call a “3D rocking chair”. Bucking the notion that people remain creatures of habit, the Calibration Stool enables a person to move into a variety of seated positions by pivoting their weight against the numerous leg options.

Inspired by nature, Aminimal also turns to geometric formations. “In industrial design, you look for a line,” says John. “You’re looking to re-purpose analogies in your design. What I was looking for was, ‘What is the negative and positive of points and what is the reaction that causes the relationship?'”

Popular and historic references in a duo of creations by Luca Nichetto

Les Poupées marks the first collaboration between Italian designer Luca Nichetto and French gallerist Pascale Cottard Olsson in Stockholm. Combining a ceramic candle holder with a glass vase, each object blends cultural references from the pure lines of Finnish artist and designer Timo Sarpaneva and the colors of Italian maestro Ettore Sottsass to the silhouette of Japanese kokeshi wooden dolls.

Another new project by Nichetto for David Design, presented at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, is Vader, a lamp that experiments with the possibilities of traditional ceramic production, pushing craftsmanship to the limit in order to create a modern design piece. The range of colors has been chosen with Scandinavian culture in mind, but at the same time reflects the designer’s Venetian origins.

We talked to Nichetto about these and some forthcoming projects.

With Les Poupées, you have been able to merge Scandinavian, Japanese and Italian design. Were you interested in highlighting the differences or the similarities between these three design cultures?

I was mainly focused on understanding how, in a global world, the classic cultures of such different countries could be able to give me some elements, to let me create a functional puzzle and generate objects to be sold. When you buy Les Poupées, you hold a piece of my personal point of view on Scandinavian, Japanese and Italian history.

The Vader lamp is tied to a different, more pop inspiration. Was the reference to Star Wars a starting point or just fortuitous?

This is not meant to be a pop project since the allusion to Star Wars is pure coincidence. The initial intuition was a minimal gesture, just two cuts into ceramics. As a result, a functional light object for the space is capable of underlining the quality of the material itself, a quality which relies also on manufacturing.

Can you give us a preview of the projects you are working on?

I’ll unveil several projects during the Milan Design Week, including new collaborations for Cassina and De Padova. I’m still continuing my research process with Established & Sons, Foscarini, Casamania and Emmegi, but I’ll also be present at Salone del Mobile with small projects for the French editors Petit Friture and La Chance.

Les Poupées are on display at the Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm until 4 March 2012 and sell from Gallery Pascale.

Our interview with minds behind the Italian company making products for the “urban nomad”

With backgrounds in architecture, landscape and graphic design, the minds behind DDP design studio have spent their respective careers observing the very intimate impact their work has on our everyday lives. From these undertakings DDP joined with italian manufacturing company Elmec to create Almove, a product design company making goods for the demanding life of an urban nomad. By sticking to clean lines, essential forms and lightweight materials, Almove’s products each solve a different singular need.

We were drawn in by the intriguing simplicity of wares like the contracting coat hanger while attending the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, and spoke with co-founder Gabriele Diamanti to learn more about what he and partners Lorenzo De Bartolomeis and Filippo Poli are doing with Almove.

Your products are for the urban nomad. Are they inspired by your own trips and experiences as design-hopping individuals?

When we invented this brand, we started from the philosophy of the urban nomad, trying to find a concept that would be very up-to-date with the daily life of the modern society, which is deeply influenced by the 2.0 culture: travels, interaction, mobile work, connection with friends and colleagues things are not only immaterial experiences, but also tangible objects.

As young people always in motion, and also passionate about traveling in our free time, we thought that the “new nomadism” was the ideal concept for the brand, continuing the reality of “liquid modernity”. That’s why we even put the concept of movement in the brand name.

It is a strong concept and it’s also very inspirational for new designs and innovations because the life-in-movement presents a lot of unsolved issues that are a very good starting point for a designer’s mind.

How does the kind of design you create differ from other forms of design—furniture for example?

Every designer always tries to invent something new. But there’s more in our products: we try to create new typologies. If one designs a new chair, it will be mostly recognizable as a chair. Of course an innovative one, but it still is clearly a chair.

With the Almove brand, we mostly try to invent new kinds of objects, something that didn’t exist before. This is very exciting, but it also carries a drawback: sometimes people don’t understand a product until we show them how to use it. So we have to spend a lot of effort explaining and communicating our simple innovations.

Material choice seems to be a key factor in your work. What are you using and why?

We use aluminum as the main material for the Almove products. This is for two reasons: the first one is the lightness and strength of the material that make it ideal for carrying in suitcases, pockets, backpacks, etc. Secondly, the company we collaborate with is really highly skilled in the cutting, bending and milling of metals… so we want to show off this talent and turn it into beautiful things.

Of course, we don’t preclude the possibility to use other materials, but the visual language of our products is mainly based on aluminum, with details and other parts made of textiles.

Lots of your products, like the business card holder, are multi-functional. Is this a focal point when you’re creating your items?

Definitely. This is always in our minds because we really want to create a new user experience when we design a new object. So when we think about a problem to be solved, we always think about it in a global way, keeping in mind that with design, it’s not about the object itself but it’s about the needs of its user.

Who are you aiming your products at?

The urban nomads, as described in the first answer, are people of very different age, culture and gender. Many times we discovered that fresh and smart objects, like the walk around bookmark, that we initially intended for young people, are also really appreciated by people in their 60s and reach a wide range of users.

So we can say that Almove items are for young people of every age. Whatever their age, our clients are always people that are careful to details and high quality products.

For the contemporary nomad, what are the biggest things you think they need to make their traveling easier?

In the past the biggest needs of a nomad were related to surviving. For example, the need for eating, drinking and shelter. The needs of the new urban nomad are more related to the social life: to communicate with other people, to work out of the office, to enjoy travel in the lightest possible way, or simply to solve more ephemeral problems encountered in the nightlife of the city, moving from a place to another.

Almove’s products are all made in Italy—any reason why you’ve kept things Italian?

Well, we are Italian! Joking apart, the Almove adventure is born in close collaboration with the Italy-based company Elmec, which decided to trust us as art directors. Moreover, this partnership rapidly turned into a friendship, so we would never want to go elsewhere to propose our ideas. We believe in the values of quality and highly skilled craftsmanship, and this company, like our country, is permeated by those values. Of course, that implies higher costs and higher prices, but we think the Almove client can understand this added value very well.

Where will you be traveling next?

Yesterday we were in Stockholm, today we are answering your questions from Barcelona. The day after tomorrow we will be back in Milan. So, who knows?