After his well received talk on Innovative Ways to Market Work at this year’s Forum, Matteo Alessi, Managing Director of Alessi, caught up with the Hidden Art team to discuss current design and the Alessi Philosophy.

 

 

It was very interesting. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of time and in the afternoon I had to go, but what we discussed in the morning was very interesting. The discussion after my presentation, and also the discussion after another presentation during the day were very stimulating because I had the opportunity to see and listen to people that have very different approaches to the design world, which is always good.

 

 

Basically, the way we approach the market we tend not to look at what the market wants at that particular moment. We want to give the maximum possible freedom to the designer in regards to what they design. Our aim is to achieve a design excellence, instead of aiming to produce a product that just sells. Obviously when you have this strategy and you don’t look directly at what consumers want, it does happen relatively often that you manufacture something that is not necessarily understood by the market. It could be because the item itself is too far ahead, or the design creates some problem to the engineers on the product and therefore the costs are particularly high, so the final price of the product is very high as well.

 

Basically what we do is we want to work on the borderline of what is understood and appreciated by the market and therefore has a commercial positive impact and result, and what is beyond this borderline; very simply, what is not understood and appreciated by the market. This borderline is not a clearly marked line on a chart done by an agency, so it is a risky approach. It is difficult to realise where this line is. As I was saying at the forum, it is important for us sometimes to go beyond this borderline for two main reasons. The first one is that when you go beyond it for a brief moment you see where it was, and you can use that reference for other projects. Second, when we go beyond the borderline, the product might not sell very well but it shows the public what can be done. It may be early but it shows what we are capable of, so I think we are moving the borderline every time. So products that are beyond the borderline may be on the safe side of the borderline in the future. Also if we didn’t have a fiasco for two years in a row, it would show that we weren’t innovating any more. If you don’t risk and give freedom to designers you are not really innovating. Having this approach is like dropping a feather on the edge of a table. You don’t know if it is going to stop on the table or if it is going to fall onto the floor. It is interesting and important to point out that Alessi is still owned and managed by the family, because you need to have commitment from all management and all ownership to this strategy. I imagine that an investment bank wouldn’t appreciate a strategy where you need to have fiascos and lose money on certain projects to achieve your target.

 

 

Yes, definitely. From a certain point of view it is easier to have this approach because we create products that require smaller investments. If you make fridges or cars for example, you obviously can’t afford to get it completely wrong on a product. So big companies in these scenarios try to find out what the consumer wants to make sure they launch the right thing at the right moment. In this way, consumers aren’t really creative. They say, “Ok, we want that fridge, but a bit bigger, in pink, because pink is the right colour, with rounded shapes”. So then you go back to the designer and say, “Ok, we need to do a fridge that has to be this big, it has to cost this much, it has to be pink, it has to be round edged.” You are setting too many boundaries in this scenario, so the designer can’t innovate enough.

 

While on the other side, if you give them total freedom you really let them (and they are the creative ones) innovate and express their creativity, sometimes far beyond what you are expecting. For example the Juicy Salive designed by Philippe Starck, the lemon squeezer, was his answer to a precise brief for him to design a tray and that looks like anything but a tray, and that’s what I mean by giving designers the freedom. Even if we asked him for a tray and he came back with something completely different, but he did say he was convinced it was the right product to manufacture. In that case, luckily, it was just on the safe side of the borderline. As I was saying we can afford this kind of strategy because when you get a product that is just before the borderline you match the characteristic of super design and super products, like those beyond the borderline, with a popular recognition of the quality of the product, and then you sell big numbers that can pay for the products that are not successful.

 

 

By not asking customers what they want, we really achieve great results when we launch something they didn’t know they want, or didn’t know they needed or didn’t know it could be produced or manufactured in that way. In fact we call our selves the ‘Dream Factory’ because one thing is producing something that is the realisation that covers the needs of the market, and the other thing is going beyond that, realising needs that they don’t even know they have at the moment. Those are the dreams, the things they don’t even know they need and you can do this by going beyond it and not asking what they want.

 

 

It is difficult. What I can say is, because it is what we do, don’t look too much at trends. If you do you may achieve great results in the short term, but if you just work to make good, and potentially great design, the it lasts and it is timeless. That happens if you don’t focus on the market but just on the quality. Also, it is important to develop your own style and to be honest. It is important that your product can be recognised as your product, if you look at any Michael Graves object, or any Aldo Rossi object, or even any Phillipe Strack object, which even though he has done so many different things, you still know it is his object. That is an important characteristic; you need to have your own style pretty clear in your mind to be able to then sell it.