+ This first link takes you to the PDF of a feature, written from a trip to Bangkok, about how Thai manufacturers are evolving their products to become more contemporary in style for an international market.
+ I spent a day at a trade show in Birmingham with a copyright lawyer as he investigated claims of intellectual property theft by exhibitors. Reactions vary from embarrassment to bad temper as other exhibitors are accused of copying.
I’ll upload more scans in due course. In the meantime I can produce a hard copy portfolio if anyone would like to see it. Or see my other pages under Published Work – there’s some good stuff in the Interviews and Design sections.
Ooh look, here are two more, pasted below in text form. Will try and find the pages to scan.
+ A feature about trendy interiors company Alessi
Being famed throughout the world for making quirky, trendy items like lemon squeezers, bottle stoppers and fruit bowls might seem like a great place to be commercially. But for Alessi, this reputation translates to lost potential to show another side of itself – its expertise in making cookware and tableware – to an international market.
Matteo Alessi, managing director of Alessi UK (and great-grandson of company founder Giovanni Alessi), explains: ‘We’re losing a lot of potential opportunities in foreign markets. In Italy, we’re seen as a cookware company with a reputation for quality and attention to detail. But we’re known outside Italy, especially in the UK and US, as a company that makes amusing, design-led accessories.’
The company wants to reposition that perception. ‘Yes, design is our mission,’ concedes Matteo, ‘but we are a housewares manufacturer and we spend a lot of time developing cookware, often in conjunction with famous chefs so that our products have functionality as well as design.’
The problem, says Matteo, is that people don’t realise how good the products are. ‘They will look at them and say “that looks nice” but not buy them. Or, what’s worse, they will buy them and not use them, which is a waste of their money.’
In its bid to be known as a cookware brand, the company is working with people like tableware and furniture designer Jasper Morrison to launch more cookware sets.
It is also trying to shift its distribution to department stores rather than just the gift shops where Alessi is typically seen. ‘Being seen in places like the cookware department of John Lewis, as we have been since 2005, really helps create perception of us as a cookware brand,’ says Matteo.
One of the reasons behind the shift in emphasis is to get away from the overly seasonal nature of sales. Because the brand is perceived so much as a gift supplier, and its retail distribution is focused on gift outlets, its sales tend to peak towards Christmas, with 40% of turnover at retail taking place during the last three months of the year. What the company wants is consumers to buy Alessi for themselves, and to buy for others outside the Christmas period, in particular for weddings.
As part of its bid to get away from its image as ‘the company that makes that lemon squeezer’, Alessi has since 2000 extended its reach into everything from watches to bathrooms, phones and even a car. Tiles and even wallpaper are also on the agenda. Alessi handles the design and communication, while its manufacturing partners (such as Siemens and Fiat) handle the production and distribution. Projects like these have highlighted Alessi’s core skill in design management.
Similarly, it has regularly worked with designers and artists from outside the homewares industry, notably architects, musicians, artists and sculptors. One notable project involved architects being asked to design tea and coffee sets. Some of the resulting products are now on sale commercially and others can be made to special order. They bring a totally new view to product design, such as with the La Cupola coffee pot by architect Aldo Rossi, whose domed lid is inspired by the dome of a church.
Story B
Brand of success
Offering everything from a £5 toothbrush to a £20,000 silver tea set, Alessi found it had created what some consumers found to be a confusing offering. A rebranding exercise during 2006 tried to deal with this by placing all the products into one of three sub-brands.
Officina Alessi includes the most sophisticated, experimental and innovative products, as well as small-scale and limited productions.
Alessi expresses the best industrial mass productions, both from the point of view of design and production quality. And the newly-created A di Alessi includes the most ‘democratic’ and accessible products. By adding this ‘affordable’ range to the offering the company aims to extend ownership of Alessi products to a wider audience.
Matteo explains: ‘There are people in their 20s or 30s who like design and think owning Alessi says something about their personal style. We’d like to help them buy into Alessi because as the get older and their earning power grows they will stay with Alessi. This fits with our core aim of taking design to a wider audience and with our new aim of growing that audience.’Story C
Design front
Alessi prides itself on its open-minded approach to design, preferring to experiment, even if that means making mistakes, rather than play safe and end up with bland products.
Matteo Alessi explains: ‘The word “design” is abused. A lot of companies call themselves design companies, but they treat design as a spice, something to make the meal taste better. We treat it as a core ingredient. For real innovation there are no boundaries – we say to designers “you design it, we will find a way to make it.“’
One recent example is the Ku tableware launched in 2005 by Japanese architect Toyo Ito. The designer formed the plates so that the effect of light on the glaze gave the optical impression that there were no internal ridges to the item. ‘This kind of thing is hard to “sell” because you need good product knowledge to explain to the customer why it is “different” but it was also challenging from a production point of view,’ says Matteo.
So, how do the production staff – who have to turn design ideas into reality – feel about being asked to make the potentially impossible? ‘Their first reaction is always “no, it can’t be done”,’ laughs Matteo. ‘But actually engineers like to be challenged and we like to put them under pressure to come up with a way to do things. Though you do have to balance the need for creativity with the need for commercial success, our focus is always on the side of creativity. We want to be a mediator between the world of art and the world of production.’
For this reason, Alessi is wary of doing too much market research. Matteo comments: ‘With due respect to consumers, they are not innovative and creative. If you start by asking them what they want, you set so many boundaries that the designer cannot express themselves.’
For example, he says, ‘if you ask a consumer what sort of car they want, they’ll tell you what sort of look they like, based on how they perceive trends, but by the time you bring the product out two years later, the fashion will have changed. If you start with design, the trend is less important and so it doesn’t matter if you take two years to develop the product.’
The strategy of creating a product with no reference to consumer tastes is a risky one, concedes Matteo. ’You don’t know how the market will react. You have a product that you might not be able to make, or make cost-effectively, or a product that the consumer doesn’t understand.’
So, a commercial fiasco then? Yes, says Matteo, but that’s actually a good thing.
‘My grandfather used to say design was like dropping a feather on a table – you never know whether the feather’s going to stay on the table or fall on the floor.
The moment all your products sell well, it means you are too much on the right side of “safe”. If you can keep just on the right side of that borderline, you achieve a product that’s both innovative and commercially successful. If you go beyond that line, the product will be a failure but at least you then know where the line is, and you can start to push it further and further back.
‘Products that are on the borderline, that are a huge success, the more mass market products, will pay for the ones that go beyond the borderline, the ones that economically don’t justify being produced. It’s important to have products like these because they maintain our name for design.’
With this in mind, designers are given enormous creative freedom. Perhaps the great example of this is the creation of the Philippe Starck Juicy Salif lemon squeezer in 1990. ‘We didn’t ask him to design a lemon squeezer,’ recalls Matteo, ‘we asked him to design a tray. But he decided to design a lemon squeezer instead – and one that didn’t squeeze lemons any better than existing lemon squeezers, and one that was four times the price!’
It was a situation where a more commercially-obsessed company might have got shirty with the designer for not sticking to the brief. As Matteo says, ‘If we’d stopped to think about it, we might have thought it was a risky thing to do. But we want our designers to have total freedom because that’s the only way to achieve innovation. If a designer you trust thinks you need a lemon squeezer, you have a lemon squeezer!’ The Juicy Salif has since become not just a best-seller but a design icon.
Though Alessi has often worked with famous names (like Starck, Michael Graves, Aldo Rossi and the like), it is equally happy to work with unknowns, knowing its own name is ’big’ enough to successfully market a product. One example of this is the Fruit Loop, a modernistic fruit holder launched in 2005 and designed by an unknown Australian designer. ‘We liked the idea and we wanted to produce it, so we did,’ says Matteo, simply.
This is indicative of the company’s attitude to fashion. ‘We don’t aim to set fashion. We don’t think “are we setting trends?”. Design is a mission, not a marketing tool. We’re about achieving excellence in design.’
Some Alessi products have certainly influenced other products, for instance the Michael Graves kettle design from 1985 has influenced kettle design generally. And some of the plastic items from the 1990s were quickly followed with similar products from other companies. But Alessi’s not about setting fashion, insists Matteo. ‘The less you focus on trying to set a trend the bigger the chance that you will actually do so. We’re fashionable because we won’t aim at being fashionable.’
This approach leads to product longevity. ‘If you focus on what the market wants now, it won’t be lost lasting, but excellence in design is timeless,’ says Matteo.
‘Look at the chaise longue that Corbusier designed in 1929. It was made because he wanted to make it that way, and it’s still selling.’
So is anything really new? Alessi’s current product range includes, among other examples, a citrus basket designed in the 1950s, a tea and coffee set designed by Carlo Alessi in 1945, an espresso maker designed in 1982. There are even an ashtray, toaster and cup that were designed in the 19th century. Matteo says: ‘We’ll reinterpret old designs, we’ll even copy them, as we did with a tray that’s based on a tray found in the ruins of Pompeii. We’ll update pots and pans with a new finish or colours. Sometimes we’ll ask the original designer to revisit a product 20 years later. But we’re not just revamping an old trend – there’s always a new approach, a different version.’
Though products vary in their popularity from market to market – stainless steel products sell particularly well in Germany, for instance, and the plastic items do well in the UK – the company’s ideal of good design works everywhere. ‘We work with designers from around the world but you can always recognise an Alessi product. No product appeals to all countries – there will be differences in shape or material for instance. But really beautiful, really well-made products appeal everywhere because they transcend trends, whether the trends are driven by fashion or regional cultures.’
Story D
A family affair
As a long-established family firm (founded in 1921 by Giovanni Alessi), Alessi is now facing the challenge of how to successfully pass on the business to the next generation. There are 15 fourth-generation Alessis, of whom Matteo is the first to have joined the business. But is there room for all the others, what will their job be, what level of seniority will they have, what qualifications do they need? Those are issues facing a lot of Italian companies. The Alessis have a policy whereby essential qualifications include being aged at least 18, having a Masters degree, being able to speak a second language and having two years’ commercial experience elsewhere.
The latter is important not just to the business but also to the self-esteem of the young Alessis. ‘Having experience shows not just the family but also yourself whether you are any good,’ says Matteo. ‘Otherwise, you never know if people say you’re good because you are good, or because you’re the son of the boss.’
Once they do join (and about eight of the fourth-generation Alessis might want to join the business), there is no guarantee of a directorship, with promotion being based on performance.
+ Indepth profile about the Italian tableware industry
Italian tableware and cookware companies are increasingly promoting their history and tradition, knowing that foreign competitors offer not only better prices but also improving quality and design. Sue Fenton talks to some of the companies that look to the past while planning for the future.
Speak to any Italian company and the word ‘heritage’ keeps coming up. This is partly because many Italian companies remain family-owned, even after several generations.
Take, for example, Alessi, founded 1921 and now on its fourth generation. Matteo Alessi, great-grandson of the founder, points out that, as companies are handed down through generations, so too are the workers’ skills, and it’s not unusual for the same families to work for the companies over generations. There are also links between families – Matteo’s grandmother came from the coffee-making rival Bialetti family – which makes industrial rivalry a rather less vicious affair than often happens.
The company has its own museum and is a member of the Italian association of company museums and archives. The collection, as well as being loaned to curators of other museums, is used as a reference point and place of inspiration for designers.
Matteo believes that, with Asian production now such good quality and design catching up fast, Italy has to bring its heritage like this to bear when promoting its products.
‘You can’t replicate history. Though we use Asian production for certain products that we can’t make cost-effectively here, to enable our aim of bringing designs to the widest possible public, we aim to keep what skills we can here in Italy.’
Similarly, Alberto Barazzoni, managing director of Barazzoni and grandson of the man who founded the business in 1903, points to local manufacturing as being important for those companies that want to protect the wealth of their own communities. The very purpose of cookware, he says, is to represent ‘the ancestral desire of man for fireside, home, the beloved’. Yet this fundamental is combined with ‘the maximum expression of technological refinement. We want to invest in upwards quality, technology and innovation rather than in delocalisation.’
Its own brand of heritage, says Barazzoni, is in the sense that product development stems from the pleasure of food, aromas, tastes, the home and the ‘joy of living‘.
There have been big investments in automation but the company says ‘creative genius’ is vital too. Products have to be beautiful, functional and unique.
Like others, Barrazoni wants to keep production in Italy by focusing on high-end sales through innovation and design. ‘We want to increase the value of Made in Italy – it’s not only symbolic of innovation and design and quality but also of a lifestyle.’
This attitude has helped generate healthy exports to China, where wealthy consumers prefer non-Chinese made products and enjoy the idea of family, tradition and good designs.
Barbara Ingignoli, design director at Barrazoni, adds: ‘Products should be modern objects of desire as well as cooking accessories. They should communicate energy. Experimentation and technical innovation go hand in hand with design.’ Like other companies, it experiments with new shapes, new materials (in this case triple-layer titanium) and different lids – and has won design prizes with, for example, the Carlo Bellini-designed copper Butterfly range.
Coffee maker and cookware maker Bialetti, which was founded in 1918, agrees: ‘Modern aspects like coffee culture and attention to technology rank alongside historic values such as quality, simplicity tradition, durability and safety.’
Similarly, Lagostina’s current advertising campaign – and the basis of its aim to become a world leader – is based on historical and traditional values first espoused by the company’s founder in 1901 – of friendship, family and art. Mark Penrose, international product director, says: ’Our brand identity is based on the values of history and local production.’
Catering cookware supplier Piazza. founded in 1880, is still based in the house, with the Alps picturesquely rising behind, in which the current owners’ grandfather was born, and is determined to keep production in Italy.
Like other long-standing companies, Piazza still has products in production that date from its early years. Now run by fourth generation Ferdinando, Enrico, Cristina and Paola, the company says it makes investments in R&D and production technologies, but maintains its heritage of respect for work, attention to detail and typical Italian know-how.
Managing director Enrico Piazza says: ‘We might not be able to compete on price, but we can on quality and production capacity. There’s also a quality of knowledge that the Chinese cannot compete on. It’s us that have invested over the years in new ideas, like silicon pastry moulds, stainless steel ice-cream scoops and hollow welded handles.’
Another form of heritage comes from the toy maker Nuovo Faro, which was founded 60 years ago. Its core product line has always been miniature versions of ‘adult’ kitchen accessories like coffee makers, ironing boards, tea sets and furniture. The items derive from a tradition, now largely disappeared, for children to be encouraged to help out around the house. For 10 years every new product was made in both adults’ and kids’ sizes, but from the 1980s safety concerns meant objects like mini-power tools had to be scrapped. Some of these child-sized items continue to be sold, though, such as coffee makers.
Story B
History retained
The Omegna area, visited by TI for this feature, has a tradition of iron working, metal and wood, making tools for the kitchen. Companies here now have evolved from a 19th century tradition of that used variety of metals from copper, silver and pewter, now mainly stainless steel.
As examples of this heritage, Alfonso Bialetti created the Moka Express in 1933, Renato Bialetti was the first to use tv advertising, Lagostina helped make the pressure cooker widespread in the 1960s and Girmi helped make electrical appliances popular in the 1950s.
What these companies have in common, apart from their family traditions, is quality of design and quality of production. In stainless steel, for example, one company cites the fact that the polishing of good steel alone, before any design or even cutting comes into play, can account for up to 80% of the total perceived value.
They value their heritage – many have their own museums or archives where products past and present, including prototypes, are stored. There is more to this than posterity though – having easy access to old designs can often help designers in current product development, not just for inspiration but also to be able to see what did and didn’t work.
A local industrial museum houses 15,000 items, including everything ever produced locally but also prototypes and sketches that never made it to the production line.
In the Cusio area, where many cookware suppliers in particular are based, the local cultural centre focuses on studying and conserving the local industrial heritage. Its museum houses many products considered to be historical objects and icons. The idea of the centre is that initiatives focused on local history can boost the image of the local industry and thus enhance buyer interest in products of the region.
Meanwhile, at the local industrial association, director Paolo Mastromo says: ‘There is a rich tradition of history and industrial heritage. It’s important to foster the history and the heritage behind the product and for us to promote Made in Italy. Behind the production processes are deep-rooted traditions to do with the culture, food and art of their region. These companies are a mirror of their place of origin.’
Davido Parodi, president of the association, says cheap imports over recent years have meant an inevitable shift of production from volume to quality, design led. ‘This challenge cannot be met by lowering prices. It about quality and durability and the products’ ability to cook well. We need to change everyday objects into objects of desire.’
But the focus on this heritage is not at the expense of technology. A project at the local university aims to develop the ‘pot of the future’ and Parodi says much of the strength of Italian companies is actually their enthusiasm for research.
The end result of all this seems to be, says Parodi, that some customers, fed up with the vagaries of customer service and deliveries from Asia, are returning to Italian suppliers. ‘This shows how the market’s changing, You can’t make a 10-year strategy any more, you have to be prepared to make changes every year if necessary.’
Story C
Ancient arts
Italy’s main trade show, Macef, has been working closely with trade associations and suppliers to promote the ideas of Made in Italy and Italian heritage at the next show, in January.
Despite claiming to be either the biggest or second biggest show of its kind in the world, according to the time of year, the show sees value in focusing in on local production and is launching a new Gourmet section to promote the association of food – plus local culture, industry and handicrafts – with tableware.
General manager Paolo Taverna explains that the show will focus more than ever before on tableware because ‘tableware and housewares are among the most ancient of arts‘.
The spring show, at a new state of the art exhibition centre, will have a new slogan, Abita, con Gioia (Living, with Joy).
There will be a section called Shop Village, where suppliers will set tables to express different moods and give ideas to retailers for their displays.
All this will help local suppliers, says Taverna, pointing out that despite the mood of optimism, there are still obstacles for the industry to overcome.
‘There’s only so big a cake and it’s not getting bigger. Suppliers have to strengthen their positions by pushing their brand names higher. The main problem is the end of the chain, the retailers. Many shops have staff who are not able to present and sell well. Even in Milan you can see shops with windows crowded with everything. Consumers are not made welcome and assistants are unable to explain why a Chinese-made pan is cheaper.’
Story D
Memories and crafts
Marco Migliari, an architect and design lecturer who liaises with Macef organisers FMI, talks about how history gives Italian production an edge.
‘Italy’s regions are rather like businesses in that they bring together various skills, both industrial and craft related. Advanced technology and craft skills go together and make products more interesting.’
Many of them are family firms, which have helped the development of their own region, he says.
Foreign competitors are now trying to copy not just the design but also the craftsmanship. That’s the problem we face nowadays. We can’t deal with it by reducing prices, we need to work on the region’s values, the interactions between culture/industry, cuisine and tradition.
Some areas need to be more open to ideas, to innovate more. So we put designers in touch with companies to help them come up with new designs.
It’s the connection between the products and where they were made that make Italian design unique, believes Migliari. ‘It’s the history characterising certain regions that makes the product interesting, not made in Italy as such.
Local and hand-made production may be what makes Italian products unique in future. Quality is linked to history and memories, the link between craftspeople and their history. We want to create a relationship between designs and tradition to make a different way of looking at objects.’
Story E
Case study: Lagostina
One company is marrying its heritage with modern marketing communications methods to achieve its aim of becoming the number one high end cookware brand in the world in the next three years.
Lagostina began life in 1901 as a cutlery maker and later developed into cookware. It is now a leader on the domestic Italian market and has a strong position in some export markets, helped by becoming part of the French Groupe SEB cookware giant last year.
When seeking to expand its markets with an advertising campaign, the company decided to refer back to the core values espoused by its founder, Emilio Lagostina.
As international product director Mark Penrose explains: ‘People like to identify with a brand and in doing so they don’t want ephemeral things. Where consumers find real values in a brand, that’s what creates growth.
So in relaunching the brand we tried to put ourselves in the consumers’ shoes by remaining true to the dream of Emilio Lagostina, who stood for commitment and friendship. These are values that touch consumers emotionally, that give the brand depth and vision.’
The company sought to convey these values in its marketing campaign via an operatic soundtrack and imagery that depicts the ideas of art, music, family, friendship and cooking together – as Penrose puts it, ‘everything true and deep in Italy‘.
The aim is to make consumers deeply attached to the brand and in doing so to add a feeling of ‘chic’ to the otherwise dull cookware industry, thus revolutionising the shopping experience.
The response has been excellent, says Penrose. ’It shows enormous promise for the brand reputation. So far we have launched in the 26 countries where Groupe SEB has its distribution and are getting big listings in South European countries and are hard at work in Anglo-Saxon markets.’
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