Last week, I gushed like a fangirl all over nobody&co's innovative designs. This week, an interview with the team's art director, Giovanni Gennari, and copywriter, Alisée Matta. After the jump, book nerds can perhaps find the inspiration to create their own, unique bookcases.
1. Between the Bibliochaise, Piola, scroll table, and comfort table, you seem to be interested
in designs that are both fun and functional. As one who lives in a small
space, but still hungers for unique design touches, I obviously see the attraction in this. What are the reasons you
happen to gravitate toward such designs?
It is important for us to work on ideas that appear in our
minds but that we've never seen before; it's more interesting, tough,
and exciting. They must be unseen and must have a
purpose. Maybe our past as creatives in advertising has conditioned the
workings of our thoughts.
2. As a book nerd, I was absolutely thrilled with your Bibliochaise and Piola
designs. Did you guys have a personal need for such additional book space? If so (and
just for kicks), what are your favorite books in your personal
collections?
Our
very first design project was la Bibliochaise. Ten years ago, we lived
in a very small place, full of books and with nearly nowhere to sit.
Problems are always the best inspirations.
Our
first drawing of la Bibliochaise in that same year was a cube in which
to sit in and with slits all around to put books in. Those slits all
together contained 5 metres of books. Geometry is magic. Each time you draw a cube something wonderful can happen.
Piola
arrived some time later and we love it; art and photography books
really stand out in it and you can admire them even when not reading
them. And the pegs give a lot of energy when you're sitting in front of them.
Alisée's favorite writers, read and reread over and over again for the beauty of their sentences, are Fernando Pessoa, Erri de Luca, Isaac B, Singer, Cioran, Siri Hustvelt, Antonio Tabucchi, etc.
Giovanni's favorite books are Don Quijote de la Mancha by Cervantes, Alexandre Dumas's Grand
Dictionnaire de Cuisine (it contains the universe), and the Pantone
guide.
3. Could you tell readers a bit more about your design background?
Our design background comes from our childhood. My father was an architect who worked with Le Corbusier and Gropius, and so I grew up surrounded by Swedish and Danish design, primitive art, and Giacometti lamps. And Giovanni's mother was an antiquarian, so he grew up with a lot of 17th-century design...
4. What is pricing like on your designs? Are you working through
retailers, or do customers need to send a request via your web site?
Our designs may be found in special shops around the world; if one particular piece can't be found in a particular country, you can contact us through our website.
5. Do you have advice for fine design-loving homeowners with a smaller budget?
We are nobody to give advice, but what we
do is save money for the special design pieces we love instead of
buying a lot of stuff we'd get bored with and that will just overfill our space. If when you've saved the right amount of money you are still in love with that particular costly piece: Buy it; it will bring you joy every day and become a friend forever.
That
said, there is good design that costs less, too, and if you back it with
an incredible colored wall (even dark grays or pink fuchsia), then you don't need to overspend at all.
Related: Designers We Love: nobody&co
