Up Close with Maria Lintott

February 28, 2008

Maria Lintott is as cute and polished as her name may imply. What she isn’t though, is typical of what that might mean if taken at face value. Her interest in details (probably what keeps her looking so well put-together) allows her to design patterns that are simultaneously intricate and simple.

In order to design a composition that is rational yet complex, Maria constantly studies the way details connect in all aspects - from wandering around street markets, noticing how the intense color of the tangerines plays against the wooden cart they sit in, to spending an hour examining the structure of a leaf and all its stems. Maria so closely observes what she is interested in that she is able to step back and recreate what she saw in a simple manner without losing the complexity of it all.

Through photography and sketching, Maria is able to capture images that exemplify how she sees the world. They also provide her with a tangible way to experiment with pattern, beginning with cutting templates from the silhouettes of her sketches and then loading them up with color. Then, by applying pressure, she transfers the pattern to the page, creating subtle variations in the color and depth of the design.

The Dynamo

February 28, 2008

Like the city he lives in, Roman Vrtiska is as young and raw as he is mature and experienced. It’s no wonder this quirky designer finds his home town of Prague - a place where you’ll see a funky fresh juice bar next to a Gothic cathedral - as a constant playground for inspiration.

Understanding the dynamic between old and new allows Roman to play with that tension. For Teroforma, Roman redesigned a vintage carafe produced by Kvetna Glassworks called the Cartouche. He took the original 1873 design and focused on finding new solutions for the traditional shape, taking into consideration the role of an object when it’s not in use.

It’s hard to pin down exactly where Roman finds his inspiration given the breadth of his interests – from street art to music to architecture. “If you are looking at the street with an open mind, you can find inspiration in everything,” he says over the phone, after explaining his definition of functional simplicity. You begin to see what he means when he tells you his favorite place is 45°56′14.825″N, 10°48′56.692″E.

For Roman Vrtiska, the world is not places, it’s a deep and open mind.

Clean Efficient Fun

February 28, 2008

Anna Dabrowski is as funky and full of life as the objects she designs. A complex person who loves humor and color, Anna is always looking for the most creative and inspiring solutions in both life and design.

Born in Poland to parents who are both artists, Anna has a natural talent for photography and design, but her travels are what keep her mind sharp and sophisticated. In fact, Anna is so smitten with relocating every once in a while that she claims Europe in its entirety as her home.

So how does a person who danced on tabletops in college and jumped out of an airplane at 13,000 feet stay so down to earth and organized? She is an efficient, motivated and passionate designer who reflects much of the renewed vibrancy of the city she now lives in. She takes photographs of the things she finds inspiring, has a portfolio & website so well put together it could run circles around a Mac ‘genius’ and she shows off her love of felt with a detailed binder that includes her designs and fabric samples.

In some ways typical of what we imagine when we hear the word “artist,” Anna has a wonderful way of balancing the practical with the absurd and always doing it in a way that is uniquely hers.

Understanding Shape

February 26, 2008

When designer and head of product development, Thea Mehl, visited Thomas Allen in Stoke-on-Trent last year, she felt designer envy. Having spent some of her student time in ceramics studios, she was “instantly jealous” seeing Thomas’s workbench and potter’s wheel.

Thomas is a shape prodigy – he talks about curves and transitional shapes as if he was born understanding how they relate to each other and the space they occupy. His enthusiasm for his work could make anyone jealous, designer or not, because to be that passionate about something is truly enviable.

The fact that his talent matches his passion is evident as you wander around his studio past a vast array of beautiful ceramic plates, cups, and coffee pots. But it was a simple flowerpot, sitting on a windowsill, that became the starting point for the Oyyo range he would later create.

The flower pot’s flowing shapes, a round base lifted into an oval top, became the inspiration for the range’s foundation piece: the Pot. From this starting point, Thomas developed plates, bowls, jugs and mugs – all encompassing the lightness and fluidity of his original design.

Life balanced on the edge of an…egg

February 24, 2008

Jose Joaquim is the eldest of 5 siblings of the Ribeiro family that has owned and operated Cutipol Foundry in Caldas Das Taipas, Portugal since its opening in 1952. Having taken over daily management of the business from his father – Jose Joaquim Sr. – Jr. is responsible for finding a balance between the traditions of the past – upheld by an unshakable faith in the importance of the role of the artisan – and the realities of a modern marketplace where demand for Cutipol designs stretches from Kobe to Copenhagen.

For the past 30 years, Jose Joaquim has worked to align his aesthetic preference for minimalism with the functional requirements of the objects he designs. As the Designer and Production Manager for Cutipol, he is constantly at the center of family- and company-wide collaborations. “I try to make things with a purity and simplicity. When you strip down the added decoration to the design, you need a very specific focus. I have a simple life – I enjoy the small things – simplicity is analogue to how I try to live.”

Having spent his childhood living literally next door to the foundry and accompanying his father on business trips, the balance of work and life for Jose Joaquim is somehow something more profound than it might at first seem. “It is like Columbus’ Egg,” (referring to a metaphor widely referenced in Portuguese and Spanish cultures about the apparent ease with which one can make an egg stand on its end). “The trick is to make it all look ‘effortless’ and it is the hardest thing to achieve.” With such lofty goals, we asked Jose Joaquim how he manages to measure his progress: “My father of course – he is still the owner and he visits us at the foundry every week.”