illywords » communicating http://www.illywords.com art, design, food, science - the world of illywords Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:30:19 +0000 en hourly 1 The perfection of imperfect http://www.illywords.com/archive-magazine/20-home-made/the-perfection-of-imperfect/ http://www.illywords.com/archive-magazine/20-home-made/the-perfection-of-imperfect/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:30:55 +0000 admin http://www.illywords.com/?page_id=2179 Your work shows your clear preference for the “manual” dimension, which we could express with the term “home made” – is this the result of a strong desire to rediscover your roots?
It is part of our background, connected to the place where we were born. We have never abandoned our roots. Although we work in São Paulo, Humberto and I have always maintained our contacts with manual skills and the concept of “home made”. We still visit the countryside, where our Italian grandparents live: they taught us that  everything can be “made at home”, from pasta to soap. Even though our parents gave us plastic or tin toys, we kept making our own toys out of terracotta. This manual dimension is still very strong in our work even now.

The concept of production does not seem to describe your work very well. Can you think of a word to replace it?
I think the concept of “humanising production” is the principle of our work. Over time, Humberto and myself have given the Italian firms we work with a concept of “hand made” that rises above the banal level, that gives the product a more human feel, more personality. We try to create a dialogue with our means of production, to try and reconcile our ideas with what industry demands.

Is the fact of being Brazilian, children of a country built on a mosaic of cultures and experiences, and living in a society with huge inequalities something that has influenced your work?
We are both lucky and unlucky at the same time. Having grown up and continuing to live in Brazil has given us an insight into many social and economic issues, but we have also encountered a vast wealth of natural resources, which provide real inspiration for our creativity. It is precisely this flexibility in communicating which has allowed us to transport our designs to Italy while keeping our own identity intact.

How do your designs develop? What sources of inspiration have allowed you to reinterpret everyday objects under a new guise?
Most of our inspiration comes from the streets – our products are like portraits of the city of São Paulo which we have a constant dialogue with. A city with twenty million inhabitants, with its traffic and chaotic architecture, which we have managed to portray on the most traditional level, despite everything. We have described the city effectively by using humble materials in our designs. What look to be ordinary, unremarkable materials are presented in a new light, through
technological intervention, but they still maintain their identity, their tradition and their history.

How does the concept of imperfection, which is a key element of “hand made” products, interact with your work?
Imperfections in our work are certainly a value, because they make each piece unique. They give the object a personality during the assembly stage, which avoids the standardised feel of serial production.

Does the recovery of this manual dimension give you a professional and personal satisfaction that cannot be found in standardised production?
Mechanisation damages people. Nowadays we see assembly lines which are increasingly being automated, but we think of an assembly line as a team effort, almost a social process that can create a community and cultivate new ideas.

Interview by Marco Minuz

]]> http://www.illywords.com/archive-magazine/20-home-made/the-perfection-of-imperfect/feed/ 0 The opinion http://www.illywords.com/archive-magazine/27-the-culture-of-listening/the-opinion/ http://www.illywords.com/archive-magazine/27-the-culture-of-listening/the-opinion/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:51:24 +0000 admin http://www.illywords.com/?page_id=2012 During these times of reflection and change caused by the global crisis we are all experiencing, I find the topic of listening to be extremely relevant. My approach is to see what can be learned from it, starting with the basic theories of modern management. I think this is essential, if we are to deal with the current economic situation.
For management guru Peter Drucker, the mission of any company is to obtain, and keep, customers. Easy to say, but to achieve this vital objective, a company first has to identify its potential customers and then win their loyalty – something that is far from simple to do. As we will see, this process is based on listening.
In order to identify potential consumers, a company needs to know how to focus on what society is communicating, through its lifestyles, trends (current or future) and weaknesses. Traditionally, a company’s Marketing department is responsible for this task. The second step is the responsibility of Sales, whose hands-on experience allows them to identify and interpret the specific needs and wants of each potential client. It is then up to Marketing to convert these signals into precise directions for product development, and transmit them to the R&D department, whose staff have a delicate, complex task. They have to generate ideas that can be transformed into projects, combining creativity with financial, technological and temporal limitations. To find their way through this jungle, the ability to listen is again key. In this case, it takes the form of brainstorming, where the team uncritically considers all the ideas – even the most bizarre – expressed by each member, until a popular winner emerges. At this point the Production department comes into play, is asked to listen to the proposals put forward by Marketing and R&D, and then has to make itself heard when setting out its own terms and conditions. Production limitations are often critical for the success of the new product, which might, at this point, see the light of day.
Is that the end of the road? Of course not. Since time has elapsed since the start of the process, the potential customer we talked to at the outset might now have different requirements. Or another competitor might have got there first. Or the initial ideas might have been thrown off course by problems encountered along the way. At this point, we find ourselves with a product that no longer matches the expectations of our potential customer. The people responsible for resolving this mismatch are the sales team. If they are good at their jobs, they’ll be able to use the Socratic art of maieutics and win the prospective client’s support for their proposals. How? By using a clever series of questions and answers, once again based on the ability to listen.
This time we really have reached the end of the road. It is an opportunity to remember that selling and using the maieutic method successfully is not only the task of a company’s sales force. We are all responsible for using this approach, no matter what our roles, in order to obtain approval, finance, or trust – in our professional or personal lives.

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