Ajay speaks to BIG-GAME
I came across your design work in the year 2012 when I started a retail format called Everyday Project. We imported the Praxis products to retail at our store. I enjoyed the simplicity and the inventiveness of the products such as Bank and Pen. There was a sensation of something new without trying too hard. I have since then followed your work. I was therefore thrilled when you came on board to design for Rubberband. The product we have arrived at is a simple canvas bag which we have called the Ten Pocket Bag - the product literally.
Augustin Scott de Martinville, Elric Petit and Grégoire Jeanmonod
From the beginning, with BIG-GAME we try to work in a lot of different fields. We believe that not being specialists allows us to explore different types of objects with fresh eyes. Working in a studio that can design at the same time for IKEA or Japanese ceramicist artisans helps to brings ideas from different fields that usually never talk together. For the 10 pocket bags, for example we had our inspiration from a tools bags for workers we studied when working on a totally different project.
I can sense that you are able to design a product keeping in mind the sensibilities of the brand and the producer. This I think reflects in the final outcome. I find it refreshing that you do not impose a particular style of your own. However is there a detail that defines BIG-GAME across all the products designed by you?
People are important for us. We believe that a good product can only be born from a good communication between a producer and a designer. The producer will brings his know-how, the designer his ideas but the only way to succeed is to have a continued back and forth between these twos. We do not have a recipe but our design is often qualified of optimistic. Maybe it's the ingredient that connects all our projects.
With so many similar products of one category already in the market, do you find it difficult to arrive at a new design?
When we work on an object, we are not obsessed with the competition, we focus on finding a way to make this object better. As designers we have to always keep an eye on the new techniques, the new materials and on the way people use their products. All these parameters are always evolving so when you are aware of it, it’s never problem to find new answers.
Augustin Scott de Martinville, Elric Petit and Grégoire Jeanmonod with the Ten Pocket Bag
Is the Ten Pocket Bag addressing an insight? How do you see people enjoying this product?
It’s not a big secret we all carry a lot of things in our bags but we never like to search inside it for 5 min to find our keys when we are in front of our house. It’s also convenient to have a separate pocket for your phone and your wet umbrella or for the sandwich you will eat for lunch. One object, one pocket.
What are you looking forward to design next?
Next projects are always exciting – it is always the occasion to learn new things from new fields. In the near future, we will work on electronic cables, a new challenge we never imagined to design.