In Conversation with Øivind Slaatto
Presented with Louis Poulsen.
Danish designer, Øivind Slaatto always tries to find simple and obvious yet poetic design solutions, which are often inspired by the world of nature. Along with John Edelman, Be Original Americas Ambassador and Design Consultant, he took to the virtual stage to touch on the importance of great design, better solutions, and the influences in nature that informed the Louis Poulsen Patera lamp.
Check out an excerpt of the discussion below or watch the full presentation.
John Edelman: I think many people today are so scared of failure, that they're almost paralyzed to move forward. You mention getting inspiration from failure, I'd love to hear more about that.
Øivind Slaatto: In my point of view, failure is extremely important and I always encourage people to fail as much as possible. The biggest failure is not to dare to fail. As designers, we are explorers of the future and we should always experiment. If we stop daring to fail, we'll never explore important parts of the future.
John Edelman: You mentioned that copying and knockoffs come from fear. How do you balance inspiration versus exploitation?
Øivind Slaatto: Inspiration is everywhere and what inspires me, may not inspire you. Of course, I can show you things which you may or might not have seen and if you copy without trying to look for yourself, then you miss the chance and the opportunity to find something only you could find. We should try to teach people to find things only they can find. You should never cheat yourself, or anyone else, out of what only you can find.
John Edelman: I know that you were on track to be a musician, what parts of your inspiration come from the music side? How do you balance that in? Do you get the same fulfillment from designing that you've got music and how do they interrelate?
Øivind Slaatto: When you learn to play an instrument, you have to practice and practice and practice. But first, you need to hear what you want to play. You have to hear the music even though there is complete silence, and have the ability to hear something which nobody else can hear. It's exactly the same thing when you're designing something that is not yet there. You have to dare to look inside of yourself, and to visualize what you would like to see, and then create it. And of course, you don't know how to create it, so you have to learn. That's why you learn different computer programs or craft mentorships, or whatever, because you have this vision.
It gets realized in an object or if you're a musician as something you can hear. Also, as a musician, you could say, if you're really good musician, you're not playing music, the music is playing you. A really good musician is somebody that just disappears. I would say a really good designer is also somebody who's just disappears. What's left is just the product and the end user.
John Edelman: At what point do you transition from anything goes to sticking to designing and funneling an idea through to completion?
Øivind Slaatto: I just try to give as much respect to the idea as I can and then I will see what happens. It's very much about being honest to it and then listening to people’s response. If somebody says something that is a better idea, then pick the better idea. Everything can be improved.
John Edelman: We talked about trend versus nature. You mentioned that, the LED technology was coming alive when you started. Now LED probably would be considered a trend, but you certainly were not trendy at all?
Øivind Slaatto: If you always try to follow the latest trend, you will always be behind because when you launch the product, the latest trend is somewhere else again. If instead you're trying to find something which is basically human, then it will be basically human five years from now or 10 years from now or 100 years from now, because we're not changing that much.
John Edelman: One of the things I found very interesting, and oftentimes for people hard to take, is that your job is to critique your clients. You don't look to placate a client but to challenge a client.
Øivind Slaatto: When a client comes to me and is asking for something, the client never knows what the client wants. The client thinks he or she knows what they want. Then, in a way, I'm like a psychologist or therapist, trying to say, oh, what if this or what if this, and during this process, we find out what the client wants, but nobody knows before you've been through this process. I don't know it myself either, so the process shows us where we want to go.
John Edelman: Which leads me to your collaboration with Louis Poulsen, I think in every great collaboration, the designer learns from the manufacturer, the manufacturer learns from the designer. Can you give us examples of how you learned from each other and what it was like working together?
Øivind Slaatto: The Patera lamp uses manufacturing technology that Louis Poulsen had never used before. I dared to make the first prototype myself, which took four to five days to assemble, and of course to make a commercial product that takes that long to assemble is nonsense. But I really believed in it. I would say the manufacturers can learn from the designers because designers are kind of stupid. We don't give up on projects that are impossible when we hit the first resistance. Experienced lighting designers would never take some of the paths I have as their wisdom tells them this is crazy. I dare to go where others don’t because I don't know how stupid it is, and then sometimes I find a jewel.
John Edelman: You're young in your career, you've had great success. What's next? If you had a choice to design something, it could be anything whether it's an automobile or a spaceship or a telephone.
Øivind Slaatto: I would like to make something that makes people use their smartphones less, because I think the smartphones are horrible. And, well, I'm working on a small watch for the same purpose.