Jaime Hayon – 10 things I’ve learned about design
Jaime Hayon designs furniture, products and interiors through his own company, now in its 15th year. He tells us the top 10 lessons he’s learned about design in his career to date.
Interview by Pamela Buxton
1 I'm like Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I make non-functional art pieces but also work for companies that take design very seriously and do good work. I say I'm an artist designer. There aren't that many differences between how artists and designers work - I'm just working as a creative.
2 I'm a control freak. I think anyone who has success in design is one, because you need to be. When you've achieved something, the hardest thing is when it isn't presented properly - there is a lot that can go wrong. For example, I always want to make the table that the work is shown on and the graphics that communicate it.
3 I like to tell stories in my work. Design is about communicating an idea. I like to show something different in my work, and communicate my thoughts and my world through it. This brings a certain theme and culture to the work. I like to make pieces with a certain humour - communication isn't just about the intellectual but about reaching our happy side. But so many funny things careful.
The Ro armchair, for Fritz Hansen
4 The best inspiration is life. You live your life, you get inspiration, and you use it to tell stories in your work. If you don't continue living and learning, you're going nowhere. Some people have a hard time finding inspiration because they don't know what to select. But inspiration is always around you if you have the eye for it, and as soon as I have an idea, I start to draw. Every project I do comes from an image or an experience, such as MGM musicals, which I love and inspired the Showtime Collection for BD. References are everywhere. I like what happens when you mix weird ingredients, such as Manga style with porcelain in a different way. This mixture is what makes things more interesting - it's a shock to the eye.
5 I like to work with earth materials. They come from the earth and will die in the earth. There is soul there. They are eternal. I work with ceramics a lot, originally because I wanted to work on a large scale and they were cheap to manufacture.
Showtime chair, for Poltrona
6 For me, design has always been a platform to have fun. When you're having a good time, you can do a lot of work.
7 I like the unusual stuff. When you do something successful for one company, other similar companies want that too but I don't want to do the same thing again. Unless it's really challenging for us, I don't do it. If there's no challenge, there's no product. The biggest challenge is trying to meet the people who are open enough to go somewhere together with you and your inspiration to create something new.
8 You need enthusiasm to succeed in design. The profession is full of challenges - there is a constant interplay between the dreams you want to achieve, industry, and your responsibility for the future. I've met people with power and money but almost never work with them. Instead I work with people I like and make good relationships. It helps that I work with friends.
With his Analog table, for Fritz Hansen
9 If you work with people, your work is very natural. If you work with machines, there is no humanity. For me, it's a luxury to meet the artisans and learn from zero what they can do. I now know about industrial processes and how much fun you can have learning about them.
10 Design is about to explode. When the biggest company in the world - Apple - is talking about design and about how it can make a difference, creativity and innovation and original thought becomes relevant - and all of us in the design field will be called on to collaborate.
