Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Yes, the truth is that my time here was quite free
quite good.We were fooling around! those were good years, actually. I learned a lot, it was a good start, It was great to begging here
because later everything turns into something much more serious. And, depending upon your direction,
you find one thing or another
. I spent the year of my degree project studying a Master in Milan
at the Polytechnic School of industrial design
I was in Milan for a whole year.
When you finish here, you have two options: looking for a job or going outside.
I had in mind the world had much to offer me and that there were a lot of possibilities and much more to see
and I didn’t want to work yet.
In fact, I went to Milan with Rafa; both of us learned a bit more that year.
We got involved more seriously: we learned how the world of the design goes,
the creative and the public relations part
the communication and the modus operandi of a fair
the way of setting exhibitions.
The thing is that just living in Milan, going to the design week makes you realise of plenty of things,
and you start understanding how everything works. For me, your personal experience teaches you much more than being in a class.
I always say that the curiosity is a muscle that you have to train.
And the deeper you get into a subject
the more you want to know. Let´s say that your limits get broaden.
Later, I went to France, and I did a workshop
with Richard Hutten in the summer
He told me: “look man, the only thing that matters is to enjoy.
If you are not able to enjoy what you are doing; if you are not able to free yourself from pressure; if you are not able to play
, to experiment, to get wrong without fear…
you are never going to produce something worthy."
When I came back to Murcia, I was working at a studio of infographics for a year.
However, I had the thought in mind of “do it yourself,"
I saw plenty of limitations in a computer
You start from an idea, and then you make it with the computer
And that´s it!
I went to Holland for that reason,
to say:
“I need to learn the craft work techniques
in order to work with different materials
so I could be able later to reinterpret them my way
or even to create new techniques or new materials.
I arrived at Holland, and I knew no one.
I was lucky to meet Nacho.
. It is important to get adapted; the capacity of adaptation has a lot to do with design
The capacity of getting adapted to new problems
or to new ways of living, of using the things
new habits and all that.
In “The Church”, I found Nacho.
I was a year practising with him
and now I have been working with him for a year. This is my second year.
This new collection is called “Diversity”.
And let´s say that, formally, they are the same piece,
they all have the same skeleton;
it´s like the human being, like the human race;
we all have the same skeleton,
but then from the outside, we are all different. We have different personality.
So these working units, they are like a desk.
And we have made eighteen equal pieces,
and each one is done with a different material.
I want to instil the yearning, the fire...
I try to wake them up some way
to make then realise that there are other ways.
I try to get them out of the idea that the normal develop is:
School, look for a job, you are in the company…
When I started at this School, I had no idea of what industrial design was,
and it was here where I found out about it,
and I discovered my vocation eventually;
that’s why I have a great memory of this School
I was sure that I wanted to do something creative,
something related to the art or the creation;
because I always have liked drawing
or making sculptures.
. I have been always interested in those things.
But I had no idea of the difference between industrial or graphic design,
I didn’t know about the categories.
that I got to know all that,
. It was here and by accident,
but I was lucky!
I finished my career and I felt I wasn’t prepared enough.
It wasn’t because the School was good or bad,
, I think that nobody is ready for working at the very moment they left the School.
The only way is to do an internship in a studio.
. That is the reason why I went to Milan to take a Master
at “The Scuola Politecnica di Design”
And It was more important than the master itself
the experience of having classmates from everywhere,
with different ways of working and of understanding the design.
You learn more from the classmates than from the master itself.
I started working with Francesco Castiglione Morelli
in a small design studio;
they were designing printers for Epson,
not as engineers but as concept-makers,
developing ideas.
And it was really good because it was the first time
I had contact with a real company,
and I became aware of how a studio works,
how it is the hierarchy…
the timing
And when it finished…, it was a really good time, because Francesco
at a human level made us feel like family.
I love them a lot.
But I had to leave in order to see how another studio or another company worked
After that, I started working with Odoardo Fioravanti
which is a more serious place, less familiar;
and much more professional and harsh.
And from there I sent a portfolio to Hector, to a studio in London.
He replied to me, and I went to London to work with him
It was a 180-degree turn in my life, because I wasn’t expecting anything like that.
When I arrived there I couldn’t say a word in English
Now, I have been here for two years, and everything goes great.
In Italy, it is much more prevalent the concept of the star system,
in which there is a “design star
who is the creator and the head of the studio,
and the rest of the people can spend their time making photocopies,
or maybe you are lucky enough you can participate in the creation process. I was lucky and in this small studio, I participated.
But the thing is that the “design star” rules, he runs the whole thing,
and he wants his face t be on the pictures.
And it is a kind of paranoia, because it doesn´t make any sense. And on the business level, it isn’t worth,
, and in London, it is quite the opposite actually.
In the case of Hector, for example, well, he is Spanish
but he has been in London for 15 years.
He studied at the Royal College,
and his way of working is quite British.
And he is very modest
he doesn’t like people taking pictures of him or to appear in a magazine.
And he is great, I mean, he is maybe the designer I admire more,
but at work, he is much more serious.
53 And the thing I like most about London is
that each day
you meet someone from a different country,
and you get to know why that person is there, what happened to him in his life…
and you meet a lot of interesting people that tell you their life experiences.
We build models made of a foam core board,
, very basic stuff, intended only to understand the compositions, and we use the computer a lot
to run 3D simulations,
and sometimes when we get lucky, and the customer is powerful,
they build the models for you.
It is like in the case of Gandía Blasco. We have done for them a stool and a pouffe.
I learned to sew, and I did a lot of prototypes at a scale of 1:5.
And at the end, from them came up the final proposal
and it was the company which made the real prototype.
We do a little bit of everything: furniture, illumination, small objects, gadgets, artistic installations.
But, for example, in the field of Furniture
if you don’t show your creations at a fair stand
the people who are in charge of putting your furniture in a building, the architects
won't get to know you
And it is very important; therefore, a lot of money is spent on that.
My advice for them would be to believe in themselves
and not to be afraid, because sometimes we have the complex
of being Spaniards, and moreover, of being from Murcia.
. And to send a curriculum to another country,
or even taking a plain to go to another country. Or going to a studio with your portfolio.
It works.
You have to be shameless.
Of course, you don’t have to lie to the people
but if you believe in your idea
do it until the end and try to find the company you need.