Frédéric Gooris

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Frédéric Gooris ("FG") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

FG : I graduated from the Hogeschool Antwerpen in 1998. In 1999 I moved to Milan and obtained my Master-in-Design at Domus Academy. The next 5 years I gained experience working for Philippe Starck and Stefano Giovannoni working on a very wide range of projects for internationally renowned companies such as Target, Alessi, Laufen, Magis, , Lavazza, Nissan, and Siemens.In 2004 I founded Studio Gooris in Milan. Clients include Alessi, Seiko, China Southern Airlines, Qantas, Minotti Cucine, Ferrero, Nespresso, Levis, JCPenny, among others. Besides being a creative mind, I am also a driven entrepreneur. In 2009 I co-founded Bombol, a company for the most exciting, innovative kids’ furniture. In 2010, the midst of the financial crisis, I decided with my wife Paulina to move family and company to Hong Kong.

DL: What motivates you to design in general, why did you become a designer?

FG : I have a strong desire to improve the world around us. So many small problems that with just a little creativity are easily solved and change things for the better.

DL: Did you choose to become a designer, or you were forced to become one?

FG : I definitely choose to become a designer and went 200% for it.

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

FG : I design all sorts of products. In general, I love the type of products that haven’t really evolved for a long time. Kids furniture is a good example, so we really have a lot of fun reinventing these.

DL: What should young designers do to become a design legend like you?

FG : Forget about the designer as a star or a legend. It should not be the goal. Be passionate about what you do and don’t be afraid to fail. You only have to be right once to make a real difference.

DL: What distinguishes between a good designer and a great designer?

FG : A good designer makes design that is appreciated by other designers. A great designer creates design that is loved by an audience that is much much wider than that, in other words, a great designer is a narrator that speaks a language easily understood by ordinary people like you and me.

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

FG : Great design is a seamless integration between an immersive narrative and meaningful innovation. In other words, delivers increased benefits compared to its existing piers and is attractive to a large pool of potential customers. Ultimately, it has contributed to the evolution of the product category.

DL: What is the value of good design? Why should everyone invest in good design?

FG : We tend to think that the world will not change, that evolution stops with us. Truth is that we are just an infinitely tiny step in an evolution that has been going on for millions of years. Good design provides answers to our ever-changing needs, enabling us to take the next step. Put very simply, good design enables us to evolve as a society.

DL: What would you design and who would you design for if you had the time?

FG : I love to do the most ordinary everyday objects, the kind that touches millions of lives. A small improvement or a smile can add up to a big contribution to society.

DL: What is the dream project you haven’t yet had time to realize?

FG : I haven’t work with glass or crystal yet. That is one of the materials that fascinates me a lot.

DL: What is your secret recipe of success in design, what is your secret ingredient?

FG : If I told you it would not be a secret anymore, would it?

DL: Who are some other design masters and legends you get inspired from?

FG : Achille Castiglioni is probably the guy I look up to most. The way he managed to infuse industrial products with humor and poetry is unparalleled.

DL: What are your favorite designs by other designers, why do you like them?

FG : I think the best design are so normal to people that they don’t even realize somebody designed it at one point in time.

DL: What is your greatest design, which aspects of that design makes you think it is great?

FG : The Escape suitcase is definitely up there. The project was not about the product but how to deliver a different travel experience for today’s business travelers. Reducing range anxiety for mobile devices and increasing work efficiency while on the road forced us not to redesign but to completely reinvent the carry-on.

DL: How could people improve themselves to be better designers, what did you do?

FG : Stop designing for your own portfolio and step out of your comfort zone, every time again. Design for the end-user.

DL: If you hadn’t become a designer, what would you have done?

FG : An architect. Not far off…

DL: How do you define design, what is design for you?

FG : Design is the answer to everyday problems that everybody already knew, but nobody really formulated yet.

DL: Who helped you to reach these heights, who was your biggest supporter?

FG : Paulina, my amazing wife. She never stopped believing in me, even in times when I stopped believing in myself. Thanks to her I managed to battle my way through the years when I earned little or no money and stay focused on developing the skillset that make me who I am today.

DL: What helped you to become a great designer?

FG : A combination of things. First my education as an engineer thought me to stay pragmatic and humble. Second my formation in Italy that thought me to dare to dream big and how to translate these dreams into a reality. Finally, the many bruises as an entrepreneur that thought me the harsh economic realities that as a designer I tended to ignore.

DL: What were the obstacles you faced before becoming a design master?

FG : There are many things that can derail a project or compromise commercial success. Learning the pitfalls is probably the one thing a designer must learn.

DL: How do you think designers should present their work?

FG : In the most time efficient way to get the concept across. One of my most successful presentations was with a model of yarn and barbeque skewers, no renders!

DL: What’s your next design project, what should we expect from you in future?

FG : More projects that tie in with new business models. We put much more emphasis on how to create business though dreaming up the future.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

FG : To create one, just one object that is so successful and so widely used that people don’t even realize it was ever designed - let alone they would know by who.

DL: What people expect from an esteemed designer such as yourself?

FG : People can easily identify the problems and tend to have a good gut feeling on how to solve them, but can rarely find the correct answers. Truth is, the answer is often in the way the problems are formulated. A designer must be able to take in all the aspects of the problem (technically, emotionally, economically, etc…) and find single solution that seamlessly brings together all the answers to the individual problems.

DL: How does design help create a better society?

FG : We tend to think that the world will not change, that evolution stops with us. Truth is that we are just an infinitely tiny step in an evolution that has been going on for millions of years. Good design provides answers to our ever-changing needs, enabling us to take the next step. Put very simply, good design enables us to evolve as a society.

DL: What are you currently working on that you are especially excited about?

FG : The Bombol project. It is about so much more than the product. We actually started by designing a new disruptive business model, and that set a number of unique constraints to the design of the product. The result is very innovative products that are suitable not just for parents but also for the hospitality business – a new market. The first product is de Pop-Up booster received an overwhelming positive reaction due to its high wow-factor.

DL: Which design projects gave you the most satisfaction, why?

FG : The Bombol project. It is about so much more than the product. We actually started by designing a new disruptive business model, and that set a number of unique constraints to the design of the product. The result is very innovative products that are suitable not just for parents but also for the hospitality business – a new market. The first product is de Pop-Up booster received an overwhelming positive reaction due to its high wow-factor.

DL: What would you like to see changed in design industry in the coming years?

FG : See the figure of the designer less as a star for marketing purposes and go back to experimenting to foster true innovation.

DL: Where do you think the design field is headed next?

FG : I think the field of Design will broaden. In a world where many jobs will be replaced by AI, design thinking will be more important than ever.

DL: How long does it take you to finalize a design project?

FG : It can range from 6 months to 5 years.

DL: When you have a new design project, where do you start?

FG : We generally start from what the ideal product should be, the utopia. Once that is fixed, we look for ways to convey a clear narrative, so the product can “talk” to the public. It sounds quite easy, but in practice we start from lots of “half ideas” that then through many iterations slowly merge together into different concepts.

DL: What is your life motto as a designer?

FG : Stay curious and don’t be afraid to fail!

DL: Do you think design sets the trends or trends set the designs?

FG : I come from the Italian design school where the ideal is timeless design.

DL: What is the role of technology when you design?

FG : Technology can be very helpful in quick visualization or defining the final design. But I am a firm believer in developing products through quick-and-dirty prototypes to get proof of concept as soon as possible. If technology can help create these fast samples it is most useful, but many young designers put a lot of effort in presenting their concepts the best way possible through incredible renders rather than focusing on the quality of their concepts by fact checking them.

DL: What kind of design software and equipment do you use in your work?

FG : Illustrator for 2D, Alias Design for the 3D and for the rest a good old-fashioned toolbox with hammer, tweezers, Dremel, etc…

DL: What is the role of the color, materials and ambient in design?

FG : Materials, colors and shapes are to designers what letters and words are to writers. They are message conveyers. Designers and writers are translators of emotions and use these tools to transmit their narratives.

DL: What do you wish people to ask about your design?

FG : How come nobody ever thought about this before?

DL: When you see a new great design or product what comes into your mind?

FG : Well done! Chapeau! My respect!

DL: Who is your ideal design partner? Do you believe in co-design?

FG : Yes I do. The ideal design partner is somebody who is trained as a designer but works as a product developer, that comes from a similar design-thinking background. Rather than competition, such a collaboration works as a catalyst.

DL: Which people you interacted had the most influence on your design?

FG : My masters Starck and Giovannoni had a very deep impact on my formation as a designer.

DL: Which books you read had the most effect on your design?

FG : I love books that tell me the history of a product category. By understanding the past and present day of an object it becomes easier to envision the future.

DL: How did you develop your skills as a master designer?

FG : My 12 years in Italy were very defining for who I became as a designer. I was interacting with true master designers on a regular basis and the insights you get by just chatting with them is something money cannot buy.

DL: Irrelative of time and space, who you would want to meet, talk and discuss with?

FG : Achille Castiglioni.

DL: How do you feel about all the awards and recognition you had, is it hard to be famous?

FG : First, I don’t consider myself famous at all. There is this myth of the triumvirate fame-design-money as the ultimate goal. Truth is if you want fame and money, design is probably one of the last places where you should start. But I do consider myself successful in the sense that I can just put on my jeans and t-shirt in the morning and go to the studio to do what I love to do. Despite the long hours I still have plenty of time for my family.

DL: What is your favorite color, place, food, season, thing and brand?

FG : Anything that is unexpected and pleasantly surprises me. I am always looking for new experiences.

DL: Please tell us a little memoir, a funny thing you had experienced as a designer?

FG : At one point in the beginning of my career, a customer asked me in Skype if the 3D files of a plastic chair I sent him were good to create a “modl”. It was prototyping stage, so I said yes. Next thing I knew, I had photos of the USD200.000 “mould” in my mailbox. We got lost in translation…

DL: What makes your day great as a designer, how do you motivate yourself?

FG : When somebody I never met tells us how much they love using our stuff. The fact of having brought some joy to someone’s life through our work is the biggest motivator of all.

DL: When you were a little child, was it obvious that you would become a great designer?

FG : It was obvious I was going to end up in the creative field, but nobody knew what was going to be, not even me.

DL: What do you think about future; what do you see will happen in thousand years from now?

FG : A thousand years from now is very hard to predict. At the rate we are messing up it is not even sure we’ll get that far. But yesterday I went to the Primary Years Project Exhibition of my eldest daughter, and I was literally blown away with creativity of the solutions they proposed for problems they detected around them in society. I felt true hope that they might be smarter and more respectful to the world they’ll inherit. Human kind might actually have a chance.