Slow Design

Tabasco is an original. It is not covered by any other product and in its own way is ultimate: two, three drops and the palate burns, regardless of whether it is used to “ennoble” a drink, a soup or a sauce. Is “design” the Tabasco in the product menues of our markets? Great oaks from little acorns grow. There could be something to this. One need only recall the media-entrancing Colani treatment of computers, glasses, televisions, kitchens among other things, which the consumer observes with the fascination of an accident witness. It could have happened to him but it didn’t — thank God! However, there are also serious examples from truly significant designers: Hansgrohe and his collaboration with Philippe Starck or the collections by Ettore Sottsass for Zumtobel and Kaldewei, but also the handles series (Jasper Morrison, Mario Botta, Alessandro Mendini etc.) for the fittings producer FSB. All these examples exhibit the intention to ennoble a successful but not particularly charismatic product portfolio through collaboration with a renowned designer. A small label of an Italian furniture giant commissioned a star architect to design a round giant sofa, which is said to have been sold barely a dozen times, but which was featured, discussed and celebrated in all the relevant design and furnishing magazines. Simple chairs, produced in massive series, were sold in the slipstream of these design icons, chairs which on account of their plainness would in themselves have been hard to position within the flashlight shimmer of the media landscape. In essence, the situation is not that different in the case of the producers referred to above