I have the impression that at present we designers act as the knotted points in a net, sought out by producers in order to find the answers to questions which they themselves cannot or do not want to answer. It is not the form alone that occupies us, but the context in which our ideas become products.
I have tried to serve as the moderator for students’ work at the HfG in such a way as to help them profit from the complexity a project gains as soon as a dialogue begins with a producer or publisher – this can serve as a chance to find the right answers during the design process, or sometimes even the questions to the answers. My aim is also to explain design not as a linear process, but as an acrobatic act in which as many balls are controlled simultaneously in the air as possible, so as to remove them from arbitrariness.
I therefore asked two very different companies during the last year to act as partners or even, one might say, as “projector screens”: The brand Thomas, a section of the Rosenthal Group, makes porcelain products for everyday use, in particular for dinner-table settings. A predominant share of the production is still manufactured and distributed in Germany. As it is the case with many manufacturers who produce themselves, Rosenthal has invested enormously in automation and stepped up production, in order to compensate for competitive disadvantages with, e.g. Asia.
Because many other European companies have followed this trend, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sell all of the articles so produced in this country.
The company Faserplast, located near St.Gallen, produces various items made of GFK (epoxy-glass resin). Their product line ranges from tanks used in agriculture to architectural elements, as were seen at the Swiss Expo 02 (among others, the Cloud in Yverdon-les-Bains). Recently Faserplast has begun working on its own furniture and lamp collection, which is distributed under the label “Nanoo”. The designer, Jörg Boner from Zurich, has taken on the position of Art Director.
Not all Nanoo products are necessarily made of GFK. However GFK is particularly suitable for the production of smaller furniture series, because it is possible to produce a small edition with simple implements and technical skills.
Now, after several months of work and with wonderful support from the model-building workshop at the HfG, as well as from Nanoo at Fasterplast and from Rosenthal, a whole range of customized objects have been achieved – each with some reference to one of the companies – that now open up new perspectives for both sides.
