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Made in Italy ceramics: design, craftsmanship and personalisation

Thursday 15 January 2009

In the picture: DesignTaleStudio ceramic slabs tailor-made for the French market as they get out of the kiln.

The push towards product personalisation is one of the most evident features of contemporary markets. It is simply enough to think about the countless list of optional accessories which can be chosen for a car, or even about the exponential increase in the number of collections, colours and finishes offered by the interior design industry (furniture, fixtures, floors and wall coverings…). Now, even the publishing sector has been influenced by the print-on-demand phenomenon, as we can see on the website Lulu.com, a website that enables you to publish your own book without the need of a publisher. That’s without mentioning electronic media, characterised by the user generated content paradigm, such as Wikipedia or Current.tv.

We too, at DesignTaleStudio, probably unique in our sector, have for some two years now, even started to produce small quantities of ceramic slabs on demand; we also consider the feasibility and production options of designs proposed by our customers. Technology is taking great strides in our industry too: recently, for example, the German architects Maier & Marom have patented a digital printing system which prints directly onto concrete surfaces, thus creating the opportunity to develop a streamlined system in which the “printing process” on a building material will be more or less the same as that on t-shirts or cakes.

Today, consumers have reached a new era of awareness: fewer “mass-consumers” and increasing amounts of “individual-consumers”, who look for the same quality found in the most evolved industrial processes, but who, at the same time, want to break free from the thought of exclusive design made just for and by an élite of professional designers and trend-makers. These consumers know what they want, follow their own personal taste and gain satisfaction from an interactive approach so that they can have a unique and completely one-off product.

Let’s think about the self-project-planning experiments carried out by Enzo Mari in the 70s. A vision which, although conceived as a breaking point and as cultural provocation, contributed to defining the concept of Made in Italy design in its most “artisan” feature which is why it is still very much modern today.
The frontier between artisan and amateur product is very subtle. It is determined by the culture and the know-how of the company, which must interpret more and more differentiated and progressive needs and tastes. A difficult task: but the future of the Made in Italy, traditionally based on this notion, must go down this path.

Published on 15 January 2009 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | Comments Off |

DTS stand at Cersaie 2008: the video

Friday 7 November 2008

A short video filmed at DesignTaleStudio stand, which was awarded as “Best of Show” during the Cersaie 2008 trade-fair. An extremely ambitious and innovative project, created by Karim Rashid’s flair and R+Evolution ceramics.

Published on 7 November 2008 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Cersaie 2008: the first photos

Tuesday 30 September 2008

9 o’clock: shutters are up, Cersaie 2008 begins.

The Refin and DesignTaleStudio stand designed by Karim Rashid has had great success and has been nominated for the award of best stand. In fact, with its open spaces and majestic terracing, covered with wonderfully colourful R+Evolution ceramics, really is a breath of fresh air in hall 36.

Published on 30 September 2008 by Alberto under Events and Exhibitions, Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Thinking back to Karim Rashid and Kasa Digitalia

Wednesday 23 July 2008

One of main attractions of last year’s Fuorisalone surely was “Kasa Digitalia”, the setting designed by Karim Rahid (a favourite of DTS) for Abet Laminati at the Triennale. An explosion of unusual shapes and colours, in keeping with the style of the Egypitian-American designer, who, without a doubt, is one of the most major trend-setters in modern-day aesthetics in the world. We have taken a look at some of the photos taken during our visit, and have the following thoughts.

This work was designed to have a completely laminated surface, traditionally a more economical solution to a lacquered or ceramic finish, but that thanks to its characteristics of light and un-broken surfaces, can result in very aesthetically pleasing and out of the ordinary finishes. Even for those artists who do work with other materials, the challenge set down by Rashid does not pass un-noticed: in fact, often we are part of “irreverent games” which have the aesthetic finish of a ceramic tile, such as joints and reflections.

One innovative point to remember, therefore, which is, at the same time, urging us to understand the real “quid” of ceramics, that is to say, its elevated and, in certain aspects, its unparalleled complex touch and shine.

Published on 23 July 2008 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Trascreativity: notes on creativity and transgression

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Trascreativity is the name of DesignTaleStudio art installation on the occasion of Fuorisalone 2008, which will take place in the square opposite the Triennale exhibition in Milan, from 16 to 21 April. Trascreativity is the union between “transgression” and “creativity”, two key concepts that will be delved into by the designers and architects invited. During our brainstorming, we took the following notes.

I am not an art critic, but I have the clear sensation that the concepts of creativity and transgression started to merge only over the previous century. That is to say, not before the Dada, cubism, futurism, conceptual art. Only starting from that moment, transgression began to become a code.

Transgression in the language, transgression against shared values and schemes, transgression in the lifestyle. Deliberate transgression as a reaction to the status quo, but also spontaneous transgression, an instinctive and surprisingly natural event.

Transgression that is sometimes the be all and end all, a superficial mask to easily attract visibility to talentless works of art. But also innovation, the statement of something never-before-seen, revolution. Creation in an almost divine sense.

Transgression is not implicit creativity. It is just one of its facets, perhaps the most powerful, complicated and controversial.  Actually, I have had second thoughts. Transgression is not the centre of creativity, it is its end yet its purpose.

Published on 12 March 2008 by Carlo under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

A visit to the Triennale Design Museum

Thursday 10 January 2008

In the week leading to Christmas I had a free Wednesday afternoon in Milan and grabbed the chance to visit the Triennale Design Museum. Paolo, our Marketing Director, had attended the inauguration on December 6, but, obviously, the worst day to savour the splendour of the exhibition was on the opening day… luckily, when I visited, the exhibition was not too over-full, so I had the time to go back and forth, contemplating, taking notes, just the way I like viewing.

Once inside the Triennale I felt immediately at home: the Museum is designed by De Lucchi, the exhibition of Fiorucci was on the lower floor… but that is not all. At the start of the day, there were only 3 of us in the entire museum: me and a famous Indian designer, with his interpreter. And who was the designer? Ironically, another familiar face: Satyendra Pakhalé, who, at the Triennale, took part at Design On Stage. A great taster.

As we know, the Museum is not set out as a traditional permanent exhibition, but instead has a series of “long-term short stay exhibitions” of around a year. The first is dedicated to “obsessions” in Italian design: a path that winds through 7 themed spaces, where pieces that have re-written design history from the ‘30s, and since been eulogised by videos made by some of the most renowned Italian directors (Olmi, Martone, Luchetti, Corsicato…). Greeting us at the entrance, a resounding work by Peter Greenaway entitled Ouverture. The herald of trumpets! 2000 years of Italian creativity.

In anticipation of going into greater depth in later posts, I will limit myself to making a general comment on the exhibition. Mine was a very positive experience: the history-graphic interpretation by curator Andrea Branzi, which, on first impression seems a bit cryptic, does, in fact, allow us to experience the works as they were originally designed to be, transforming them into veritable cultural objects, rendered with an intrinsic symbolic value that makes them unique, irrespective of the “who-designed-then-and-when”. The arrangement allows for various levels of interpretation, from one which is very aesthetically tight to a more technical and expert one, but, in my opinion, it transgresses in a couple of aspects: the videos of the Italian directors cannot receive the appreciation they deserve, as they are projected onto giant surfaces but in a limited space, while the informative presentations on the mini-display video alongside the works are graphically poor and too long and articulated to be of use. What a pity too, that, on the day I attended, the section dedicated to works of light was closed for refurbishment.

Here are some other opinions of the Triennale Design Museum:

a reportage with photos from Designerblog
De Zeen (in English, with lots of beautiful photos)
Style And Fashion (from where we shot the video)
PataSign

Published on 10 January 2008 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

In memory of Ettore Sottsass

Wednesday 2 January 2008

Yesterday, we all awoke to some sad news: Ettore Sottsass, the dean and guru of Italian design, died as 2007 was coming to an end.

At the very time President Napolitano was giving his final year’s address to the Italian people, appealing to the Italian creativity, Sottsass passed away, and with him one of our greatest contemporary creative talents, an all round talent who was able to test himself constantly with modernity, to recreate himself and to be able to pit his wits against the greatest talents of the new generation. As were, at different times, Michele De Lucchi, Andrea Branzi, Matteo Thun and Aldo Cibic, to name but a few of the main “sons” of Sottsass.

We are pleased to remember that ceramic was one of the main materials Sottsass used to express himself: so, in this sense, it is worth remembering the longstanding partnership he had with Bitossi in the ‘50s and ‘60s, geared especially towards the creation of the vases and design pieces, that launched him towards the very summit of Italian design.

The links below may be of interest:

Sottsass’s profile on Wikipedia and Design Addict
A gallery of his work on Flickr
Three interviews for Panorama, Rai Educational and Archimagazine
The exhibition to celebrate his 90th birthday, Vorrei Sapere Perché, in Trieste, which runs until March 2008; and, less we forget, Ettore Sottsass – Work In Progress, held in London last Spring and which is the subject of the video at the start of the post, and the Design Museum at the Triennale in Milan
The first reactions to the news of his death by some Italian bloggers: Designerblog, Designbuzz, Alfonso Fuggetta, Aurelio Valesi, Design Blog Sociale.

Published on 2 January 2008 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Ceramics, ecology, bio-architecture, bio-building: DesignTaleStudio’s role

Monday 15 October 2007

We are taking the occasion of the Blog Action Day, this year focusing on ecology issues, to start introducing a very important topic for DesignTaleStudio and for contemporary architecture in general: the theme of bio-building and of the adoption of eco-friendly materials as the cornerstones for design spaces.

As we well know, the environmental issue is (or should be) the focus of the world political agenda: just thinking back to the recent Nobel Peace Prize given to Al Gore and his campaign on the global warming and climatic shocks. In the ceramic industry, the “hottest” themes from an environmental point of view are energy consumptions, pollution and the extraction of raw materials. In recent years, all of the most important companies in the sector, and Refin was amongst the first ones, have obtained the important Ecolabel certification as “a guarantee of the steps taken forward towards raw materials selection, higher efficiency in the use of energy and water resources, considerable reduction of polluting releases as well as in the great increasing of material re-cycling processes”.

In this context, DesignTaleStudio wants to be the standard bearer of a new productive philosophy that, by reviving the craftsmanship values and the small scale production, tries to bring into question the immutable productive logic of the industry. In the same way as the concept of “Slow Food”, based on a culture consisting of quality, creativity and freshness opposed to the “barbarism” of fast/junk food, which, in recent years, has become key to the restaurant sector, we would like to become the spokesperson of a slow approach to design, conceived as research, experimentation and uniqueness. A basic approach for today’s market which has been invaded by Asian products of doubtful quality .

Ours is the relaxed pace of those who don’t need to hurry. “Rediscover the right measure, re-conquest the expert calmness of craftsmen. Substitute the noise of machines with the silence of paint brushes for a new concept of art, creativity, experimentation”: this is what our new Cersaie catalogue states and we believe these are the values to revive for a really sustainable, eco-friendly design.

Published on 15 October 2007 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Flooring in virtual porcelain stoneware for Second Life and architectures of the metaverse

Friday 14 September 2007

Pavimenti in gres porcellanato per Second Life

At the very beginning, the flooring of the Monslab Gallery Porto Venere, the art gallery hosting DesignTaleStudio’s “Meta Design” exhibition was made of porphyry, as is the rest of the Portobello area in Porto Venere. Then, during the setting up of the exhibition, we asked ourselves: why don’t we install large size porcelain stoneware slabs, as we usually do in our real life projects?

Making these decisions on Second Life is, of course, a very easy job, as there are no benches to be moved. The technical features of porcelain stoneware (strength, acid and frost resistance, low absorption levels, cleanability…) clearly lose their value in a virtual space and the only value criterion is that of aesthetic pleasure. So, how can the slabs “stand out” in a visually convincing way and faithfully reproduce the original? After having carried out some trials with some modern style collections of our parent company, Refin, the very tiles that we usually combine with DesignTaleStudio slabs, we have opted for the Velvet Ground Grafite. They are large size slabs, opaque and dark, which exalt the luminosity of the displayed works and create a kind of discontinuous effect with the outdoor space, in such a way to visually mark the entrance of the gallery, as it does not have a door.

From a technical point of view, the first solution we tried was that of repeating the image of a single slab imported as a texture, but then we realized that the Second Life rendering engine is not able to faithfully reproduce the colour-shading. After many attempts, we decided to create a single texture image on every backdrop, in which the installation pattern had been emulated using Photoshop and drawing very small grout-lines within a large image of a single “miniature” of the slab. By loading the image at the highest definition possible on the Second Life editor, we managed to obtain a flooring effect we were happy with. In this way, we also managed to save on the number of prims, which meant that we could afford to buy more cocktail glasses…

Published on 14 September 2007 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Large size formats in architecture: the Conference Centre in Merida by Nieto and Sobejano

Wednesday 12 September 2007

Merida

One of the key concepts which we have been working on since the beginning of our DesignTaleStudio experience is that of “large size”: it is no coincidence, in fact, that the Pareti d’Autore with their 120_60 cm are probably one of the largest products on the ceramic industry market. We have total confidence in this project because we think that large size claddings can offer architects surprising creative opportunities, as they can be used to plan surfaces that partially elude the traditional “visual grid” logic imposed by the intersection of grout lines between the tiles, and they allow for stunning personalization of spaces even using a single slab only.

Again on the subject of the large size concept, we have recently spoken about the Conference Centre in Merida designed by architects Nieto and Sobejano (as well as visiting the architects’ web-site, we further suggest you to look at these beautiful pictures of the building on Flickr). The external cladding is carried out using large cement slabs on which a relief map of the city’s streets is reproduced in negative. The slabs have been created using five different rubber casts, all deriving from a single slab from an original idea designed by the sculptor Esther Pizarro: the slabs follow four basic patterns and create a peculiar and distinctive effect, thus managing to turn the building, in a very short space of time, into one of the symbolic icons of contemporary Spanish architecture.

The aspect that has been the most interesting and inspiring for us as well, is this attempt to merge art and building “materials” which has enabled the architects to achieve an absolutely unique effect on the external cladding. This was unlikely to be achieved using small size formats. Today, DesignTaleStudio only produces slabs for interiors, but we know that the properties of porcelain stoneware would allow for a successful outdoor performance. It is often used as a “surrogate” for marble and natural stone, though offering greater aesthetic opportunities, and many more especially if compared to concrete… who knows, perhaps one day we will offer outdoor solutions too.

Published on 12 September 2007 by Alberto under Real-life Projects | 0 Comments |

Archive of the Category 'Real-life Projects'

Made in Italy ceramics: design, craftsmanship and personalisation

DTS stand at Cersaie 2008: the video

Cersaie 2008: the first photos

Thinking back to Karim Rashid and Kasa Digitalia

Trascreativity: notes on creativity and transgression

A visit to the Triennale Design Museum

In memory of Ettore Sottsass

Ceramics, ecology, bio-architecture, bio-building: DesignTaleStudio’s role

Flooring in virtual porcelain stoneware for Second Life and architectures of the metaverse

Large size formats in architecture: the Conference Centre in Merida by Nieto and Sobejano

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