Interview with Stephan Seifert

After almost 10 years working in New Zealand, Los Angeles, London and Barcelona, in 2013 I decided to set up my own design studio. I have strong experience in furniture, toy and product design, and have been lucky enough over the years to have been able to collaborate on different projects from designing train interiors, interiors of floating homes, toys and medical furniture.

Design for me is a creative methodology for defining, analyzing and solving problems. Design has grown from being just a problem solvers domain to actually being extremely useful in the problem definition phase of any project.

Furniture, toys and medical equipment.

I think my best work is yet to come! :)

The first project for a client was actually done whilst still studying. I was the structural and graphic design for a cardboard gift goggles for the Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand.

I love wood. It's strong versatile, natural, has great tact and so many ways of finishing/polishing. And best of all it ages well!

With some good music (80's) sunshine coffee and seabreeze!

A balance of aesthetics AND functionality.

I love the journey, it's always an adventure, a mistery trip wthat you don't know the destination of until you start filling in the details.

A kind of pride of having finished the project and also a little loss. I guess it's what a parent feels like when your kid leaves home. You've done all you can and now it's time for your baby to fend for itself.

Continuing from above, when your creation not just fends for itself but exceeds your expectations!

Does it work?

I think most of all to bring functional products into the market. Another aspect that we need to push for is making what we design sustainable, and we need to do all we can to convince our partners of this.

Design has always touched every part of human society. I think what is happening is that with saturated marketplaces the creative aspect of humanity is regaining the ground it lost to science over the last centuries. I think in the end design and science must balance to find creative yet useful solutions for all of us.

A lot of my inspiration come from words, word play, double meaning, reading between the lines. Another big source of inspiration is nature. It lways finds way to create a beautiful yet efficient and sustainable design for the most varied problems imaginable

elegant - minimalist - functional

In Barcelona, although I am not from here. I am a New Zealander/Swiss and have lived and worked in New Zealand, Los Angeles, London, and now Barcelona. I love this city, the climate, the culture, the location between the mountains and the sea. It's close to central Europe to get there in less than 2 hours flight.

I like to be able to start early, in the problem definition stage of the project. Desgner usually get called in late, to help beautify product that has already be defined by engineering or mrketng/sales.

Be patient. Designer at the start usually have more questions than answers. Its the expansive phase of the project. Don't restrict it till later. The reason you got a designer is to get new ideas, so let them get out there.
Attached to this comes also a plea to get a designe involved earlier. Usually alot of design briefs come already defined by someone who doesn't have the training in visualizing to see all the posibilities in the world.

First I try to understand the problem, interviewing people, fotography, immersing myself in the situation. Then come research of competitors, technologies ergonomics to set the base of the problem. Only then will i usually start sketching, prototyping and through iteration and interaction with stakeholders, develop an optimal solution.

Wake up, walk the dog, go for swim or run, then settle with a cup of coffee and organize the day.

To any young designers I would recomend to get into industry. It doesn't have to be the flashest design studio in town/country/world. Sometimes you learn more working around the constraints than having all the freedom in the world.

Positives are that you get to be creative,, meet a large variety of people from different fields, to help create something that will hopefully make the world a better place. The Negative sides usually are that the people you deal with have their own agenda and priorities, and that what you are making is subscibed to the imperative of it having to make money.

Make it!! Prototype! In furniture and industrial design i think it's still important to get your hands dirty and make a physical prototype. See what you are dealing with, feel it in your hands. It doesn't need to be pretty nor perfect, but get away from the computer sometimes really helps put things into perspective.

Drawing drawing drawing

pencil & paper, camera, 3D Software such as Rhinoceros and Solidworks, The library are always one of my first points of reference.

Breaking down the tsk into constituent parts, and always doubling the estimate of how long i think it might take. I am a natural optimist!

it all depends on the object, the complexity of it, but usually it would take between 2-4 months.

As an industrial designer it still is "Oh, so you design factories?"

As an industrial designer the most important job experience has been working in a packaging factory as a designer. The ability to work with, and understand, and i think even more importantly, emphazise with "the enemy" is extremely important to me.

I have worked for P&G, IDEO, TGV, Carpyen, LAKEN, PLAY, Fuelfor, Minairons, Thelos Henkel, Danone Waters, Groupe SEB and Reckitt Benkiser amongst others.

I like to work on design that solve problems or create joy, value and meaning for the people they were intended for.

Apart from my regular studio work, I am at colaborating with Open Ideo in Barcelona, deveoping solutions for the young people in Barcelona, to help them find their way in the world. Also creating Gardening Start-up with some friends, developing on from an idea we had during a Design Workshop.

I work for myself, but i have a close group of friends and colaborators that I bounce ideas off.

Unfortunately can't talk about them yet!

my website: www.stephanseifert.com
telefone: +34 653 037 616