What influences you and your design practice? Life! Taking stuff from one place and surplanting it in another. Mashing it up and it doesn't matter from where. Music, especially my favourite composer Phillip Glass, landscape architecture, architecture, street art/grunge, fine art, photography, YouTube clips, French car design in the late 70s/early 80s, just about anything EXCEPT graphic design magazines and books.
Why Design? What are the alternatives? Leave things to chance? Wait for natural selection to kick in? Wait for philosophy to come up with a solution? To me design is what happens when you apply intelligence to an actual problem. Most of what people do, if it isn’t habit, involves design, but as designers we have the expertise to take what other people would muddle along with and resolve it efficiently and to maximum effect.
What's interesting about New Zealand design? I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the two most recent Better by Design CEO Summits in Auckland. This has given me the opportunity to meet and interact with a number New Zealand design firms. New Zealand is doing some great things in design and it’s encouraging to see the local design community embracing the connection to their country, people and history to create more relevant design outcomes. A number of your design firms have also had success in Australia including at the AGDA Biennial Awards.
What can design fix? Mostly the things that we never considered annoying, expensive, difficult or missing until someone made them easier, attractive, cheaper, or more complete. If design could fix rampant consumerism (and the knock-on effect of it's absence in the world economy) I'd be pretty stoked. What colour toothbrush do you want?
Favourite piece of design, and why? Friso Kramer's Revolt chair for De Cirkel, 1953. It was revolutionary in its use of folded steel legs; it used less material, which was advantageous in a resource-strapped post-war Europe, at the same time making it lighter and less expensive to transport; it also made the chair stronger. So it's my favourite kind of solution: win / win / win.
What's something you read on the internet and never forgot? Find a hook or basis to start giving someone's values back to them visually – Paula Scher, from Hillman Curtis' Artist Series.
Why Design? How can you not?
What influences you and your design practice? Constraints are a big influence. Identifying and understanding constraints can leads to really interesting solutions.
What studio do you dream of working at? Dream of? Well it has to be my studio but it's located somewhere exotic - like outer space.
What's interesting about New Zealand design? We have a largely generalist mentality, which is a necessity when trying to get stuff done in small groups. This is partially what draws us to work on the web, where so many disciplines collide.
Why Design? Design is a fundamental human activity. It allows us to plan for the future and improve our quality of life. The principles of design can be applied across a broad range of areas from services, communications, infrastructure and environments to products. The aim should always be to create something beautiful, relevant, meaningful and of lasting value.
What can design fix? Any problem is a design problem. Having said that designers often over estimate the value/role of design. Great problem solving and innovation is usually the result of many people, many disciplines working together.
Why design? Design for me is an outlet for my creativity and exploration. What other profession lets you draw all day and get paid for it.
What influences you and your design practice? Our customer, their experience, the environment that they live in.
Why Design? To turn ideas into reality; to synthesise numerous, often contradictory, constraints into elegant design solutions
What can design fix? Everything is designed & created, good design is enduring & very practical.
What's interesting about New Zealand design? The number of excellent design programs at universities and institutes all over the country.
Why design? It’s not as fragile as painting.
What's the website you obsessively visit? I do not view myself as obsessive … it is not helpful when expanding options and opportunities … however, www.nowness.com often inspires me with its beauty. Who saw the slow motion video of the Spanish dressage rider a year ago? Rivetingly beautiful synergy.