I met Sebastian Wrong at twentytwentyone at 2012’s London Design Festival when I interviewed Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec about their collaboration with him. Fast forward just one year and at 2013’s London Design Festival he was launching a collaboration with Danish Design Duo Hay. I saw so much design during LDF my head nearly exploded, but the Wrong for Hay collaboration stuck with me, so I wanted to go back and find out more. I was lucky enough to pin Sebastian down just before Christmas – here’s what we talked about…
What’s the most important thing to know about you?
You have to have patience to work with me. Because things take time. When you commit to doing a product, it takes a huge amount of energy to do it properly. So when I now commit to working with a designer or developing a product, that’s quite significant, so I think patience is very important on both sides, because it really does take time. Of course, you need to keep the pressure on it because time is a luxury, but the other side is getting it right and the balance is important.
Do you think you have to be a patient person to be a designer?
Yes I do. You have to understand the challenges that everyone is being confronted with along the whole chain – you need to be flexible and considerate about the concerns that one person might have, which might be very different from your concerns, but nevertheless in terms of the actual object, or the objectification of your design, they are valid issues. There’s sales, production, packaging… there are so many different parts to getting a product into stores. You need to be quite good at judging what’s going to work at an early stage, It’s very easy to get very excited about something and throw a lot of time and energy at it, and then a certain way down the development, you can see a complete albatross – a freak that will never sit in the real world. You’ve got to be able to kill your babies.
Tell me about your journey from Established & Sons through The Wrong Shop to Wrong for Hay.
Where I am today would only be possible through my experience to date, especially Established & Sons, which was an amazing experience, very exciting and very liberating and very challenging as well. I really learnt to cut my cloth with that business – it was a very valid experience.
When I moved on from Established & Sons, I was interested in focusing on the middle market and the consumer, In a simplistic way – offering good design at a good price. I think that’s the role of a good company that produces good design – their products should be accessible to most people. I think we’re coming out of the period where there was a lot of confusion over markets and values and this whole modern craft movement. The hierarchy, and the prices, have changed a lot over the last few years. I think there is a new order. The retail landscape is very different and I think the future offers lots of new challenges which I think are very interesting. In my opinion, it’s about steering away from the personality of the designer and making it more about the design itself.
That’s got to be a harder job, hasn’t it?
It comes with its own a set of challenges, but I don’t think selling a table for £1m is sustainable. It is in the art world, but not in design. The ‘design art’ movement was a very interesting moment in time. I think design is veering away from that now, but it’s enriched as a result of that experience. Everyone who is interested in design is better for it. Before the design art ‘dance’ industrial product design had a tendency to be dry, utilitarian and rather unemotional. It was not very adventurous, always operating in a tiny dimension of restricted freedom. What that period offered was a huge liberation, and experimentation. At times, due to the crisis, manufacturers couldn’t invest in new technologies, so it forced craft that came from the designers’ studios – and that created a mutation that is now going back into industry.
Tell me about Wrong for Hay.
The connection between me and Mette and Rolf Hay is based on friendship and a similar DNA in terms of where we are, what we like, how old we are, where we live… we have a lot in common despite not living in the same country. Hay is at a particular point of the company’s growth, which is very strong – I think it’s really interesting that a company like this is growing so well at a time when many other companies are finding it so tough. Hay needed to add another entity into the family and Wrong for Hay was a good starting point. I think our aesthetics are quite similar. They were aware that they needed to create a lighting collection, so the conversation started around lighting, but then they wanted to do more than lighting, they wanted it to be about a whole collection.
Is the Wrong for Hay collection particularly British?
I have no idea! That’s not the intention, it’s about working with me. I’m in London, my team is here, my knowledge, my heritage my experience is in London and I will be here. I guess being a Londoner, I am exposed to lots of different inputs. The collection is completely global, I think. I consider London to be a peculiar island. It’s unique to the rest of the country. It’s a freak. I am harvesting the dynamic energy that makes this city what it is, and the collection becomes a hybrid of what London is. London is completely international, so I’m working with designers all over the world, based primarily on objects that I would want to live with myself. It’s a simple criteria.
You seem have a strong sense of what you like…
I think I do. And I think it’s compatible with the Scandinavian ethos, which is good quality, understated, clean aesthetics. They’re not overly decorated, they’re quite classic… There’s a reinvention, but it’s not radical, and I think that’s true of my work too. There’s a little twist here and there, it’s edited, but it’s not radical. I can work with people who have more of a radical output, but I don’t actually think the market needs radical at the moment.
You seem to have a confidence in what you like and what you don’t like – it’s a definite. Has that always been the case, or does that come with age and experience?
I’ve always been quite clear on that, ever since I studied art. I like clean, clear, iconic statements. When you have a feeling about something, about what works and what doesn’t work, it’s an intuitive reaction. It is clear. I guess the older I get and the more experienced I get, the more pernickety I get about what I want to produce and who I want to work with. It’s quite a commitment and you have to be able to work with people you like. Working with egos is terribly, terribly challenging and exhausting. And realistically, somebody buying a sofa in Shanghai doesn’t know who I am, they’re interested in the object and the price – does it work in their home? Does it fit into their life?
Talk me through your design process – how do you find inspiration and how do you get from that to a final product?
I collect iPhone photos – of shapes, forms, materials, textures. I rarely look to other designers, but I go to art galleries. My studio is full of things I’ve collected. I can just go in there and fill up – find a thread. I always leave feeling better. No-one goes in there apart from me – I would love to be able to carve out a day a week to spend there. Then ideas stay in my head for ages. It’s a slow process! Eventually I’ll brief my team to develop them – collaborating with other designers is one of the best parts of my job. Taking the creativity of new designers and turning that into products. They’re so creative, they don’t need more creativity from me, what they need is to make it work commercially and I’ve always been good at that. I think that’s what makes me unusual.
What’s your favourite part of the process?
Seeing the sample come out of the box – seeing it made real. It’s not nerve wracking anymore, because experience makes you better at avoiding nasty surprises.
You studied sculpture at art school – do you think that’s impacted the way you design?
Yes, very much so. I think a fine art education was a very huge asset to what I do and the way I look at things and approach things. I think there is real value in studying something abstract, the study of aesthetic, the study of materials. I can say that all the objects I design have a very clear formal language, and I think that understanding comes from my experience in studying and making sculpture, the aesthetics of formality. There’s a whole load of furniture now that’s based on renders and it’s not for humans – there’s no comfort, there’s no softness, there’s no emotion. Design is about function; it’s about usability.
What advice would you give to an aspiring designer?
Experience is knowledge. There’s a lot of controversy over internships at the moment, but there have always been apprenticeships. Of course people should be paid, but they also have to appreciate that while their skill level is low, their pay will also be low – and that they’re still learning and gaining valuable experience. But however you do it, it’s crucial to learn about the whole process – commercial context is really important. And some of the most interesting people have worked in MacDonald’s – they understand the value of hard work.
And finally, what’s your favourite colour?!
Green.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- interview :: lindsey lang
- interview :: the new craftsmen
- interview :: aino-maija metsola
- interview :: bethan john
