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 TECHNOLOGY, FORM AND COMMUNICATION OF THE PRODUCT
 Interview with FT&A Industrial Design


FT&A Industrial Design Studio was established in Milan in 1997, following up to the redesigning of the many years' activity of the founder and President: Francesco Trabucco. It was created as a dynamic start up to involve young and talented designers ready to face the market.
All the awards won by Francesco Trabucco as from the early 70s attest the solid backgroung of the Studio, which, combined with the young and innovative side, appears as the real key of success of the whole activity. So that, the long experience and the new contributions allow FT&A Team to interact with prestigious Italian and foreign companies, such as: Vortice, CFD Electronics, Ariete, Nardi, Canalplast, Measurement Computing, Whirlpoool, SICA, Emmegi Seating, Fantoni Group, Microsystems...
Hereby we give a summary of the conversation we had with the designers working at FT&A. We think that the several topics we discussed together can be interesting and stimulating for our readers too
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Your activity has dealt with different industries, but it has been mainly represented by the creation of objects related to one of the most difficult elements to give shape to: the air...
We have been working for years both with Italian and International companies, all leaders in their specific area. Such a differentiation of the several partnerships, developed during the years, is nothing but the natural consequence of our professional ethic, which has always influenced our choices by applying the most radical strategies, especially in terms of competition and loyalty.
Just our loyalty together with the constructive interactions built at each time between us as designers, and the clients, has allowed to give shape even to those objects strictly related to such an untangible element, like air.
Of course, we are speaking about our many years' partnership with Vortice. The Italian leader of air conditioning systems and devices. During this constructive collaboration we have always been involved, and we still are, in designing all the products subsequentely put on the market. We have always focused on combining innovative shapes with new technological opportunities, turning the mechanical side into a real source of inspiration for our aesthetic contribution.
Nordik Evolution and Arctico - the last two recentely-created products - can clearly show what we mean.

How has your attitude towards the projects changed in relation to the new ways of production?
Dealing with Design for us means turning technological opportunities into new communicative, aesthetic, functional and ergonomical qualities of the industrial products...
Designing implyes being in line with the times, while monitoring and foreseeing all the possible trends. Of course, all this needs to match with each historical, social and productive context.
Basically, Design is nothing but art turned into craftmanship. Giving shape to ideas means keeping constantly in line with the different channels of production, with all the timelines and deadlines given by each different industry. Only by keeping updated and beeing endowed with a flexible nature is possible to approach successfully each new project. We do think that what still makes the difference at FT&A's is the enthusiastic mood and the professional attitude, never changed since the first years of Francesco Trabucco's activity, and now turned into a true philosophy for the whole Team.
That's to say that since the Bidone Aspiratutto - the vacuum cleaner - designed for Alfatec in 1974, to our last achievement: the restyling of a belling machine, Everbell 3 recentely realized for SICA, and exhibited during the International K 2004 Fair in Dusseldorf, as a possible application of design to industrial machines, nothing has changed in terms of motivation and values.

Other fields of application of your competences are the Trunking and the Security systems. Both can look quite unusual for the great public, but at the same time they can represent a new sector of action for the strategic role that design can play on these markets. Either for what specifically concerns the formal or the technological and functional point of view...
We approached the world of trunking and security systems keeping in line with our policy of differentiation and our needs to relate to new industries. We gave shape to the successful partnerships with Canalplast and CFD Electronics. Dealing with design means turning the technological opportunities offered by research into tangible and functional industrial products. Only sticking to this philosophy is possible to assign the role of real engine of innovation to our activity, no matter the place the products are conceived for: either home or industry.
Regarding Canalplast, with Tris2000 we realized a trunking system for electric plants, easy to camoufflage and appear as a sort of floor border.
For CFD we created Plenitude Premium - a security system recentely put on the market - a tangible application of a functional design to a high tech and innovative product. In this specific case we designed also the graphic interface of the whole system.

From Concept to the impact on the market, all the possible interaction between designers and clients can be summarized in a range of steps likely to influence and sometime determine the final achievement...
It wouldn't be feasible to create a new product without going through different stages. Moving from Concept to Development, as well as from Engineering to Support to Production means moving on gradually and methodically.
Concept is the most important stage of the whole process, it includes indeed the genesis of the idea itself; right at this point all the innovative factors can be conceived in order to determine the impact on the market.
After the Concept stage comes the Development, when the idea starts to take shape by defining the best technologies, the right processes, the technical components and all the dimensional, materic, tactile aspects and finishings.
Engineering concerns the development in co design of all the different components aiming to the realisation of the product at its final stage, and to optimize timelines.
Anyway, our responsibilities go further. We normally support our clients till prototyping, giving assistance and consulting.
During this stage - called indeed Support to Production - while prototyping, it's possible to happen into problems requesting quick actions in order to skip loops, save time and contain costs.
None of these stages is less important than the others. Only moving on gradually it is possible to give the best of us as designers.

One of the indicators of the complex planning process is the long gap between the genesis of the idea, and the realisation of the product itself. What have you been experiencing so far on this side?
It's not possible to generalize on the timeframes of creation, approval and impact on the market of a product, as to different industries can correspond different timelines.
Beeing in tune with the clients' expectations is essential to optimize the workframe and to avoid misunderstandings.
While for what concerns production timelines and the commercial side, well, the market has its well-defined rules and it's definetely not up to us twisting everything up.

It's quite common nowadays to experience companies' insourcing of wider and wider steps of the whole planning process. This might sound as a sort of dispossessing, which gives anyway the young designers the chance to face different structures and to compete on different levels...
We have always been able to find out the right strategies of communication, in order to build up solid and longlasting partnerships. Always respecting the different roles: designer and productor.
As we said, flexibility and our versatile attitude are the core of our activity, essential to interact with the clients and to face each new sector.
A company used to look at design as a powerful marketing tool is more receptive to get involved in new collaborations in outsourcing and follows up our parterships with full dedication and loyalty.

Design plays an essential role in the different areas of production, at the point that it's not possible now to speak about a product without considering the system behind. Today a company needs to count on several factors, such as: the product itself; services; Communication. How are you dealing with the more and more demanding expectations linked to products' image and communication?
It sounds quite actual to discuss about new cultural challenges, the new rising markets or the gradually dieing out of brands already at their crucial mature stage.
The answer stays in the wise and good management of the Corporate Identity.
Recentely, we have been reconsidering our image, and thanks to our multidisciplinary team we opened to new targets and services: Corporate Image Consulting, Logo Application&Enhancement, Packaging, webCommunication.
Anyway, the image needs to be promoted and communicated to the great public. That's why it's so important to apply the right PR Plan.
Design is already an added value, but in order to penetrate the wide channels of production it needs Communication to better impact and influence new investors.

It can happen that even a good project doesn't meet the client's expectation and gets refused. In such a perspective, especially for the young designers, could be possible to take occasionally into account the self production of the product. Have you ever experienced anything similar?
Fortunaltely, in the most of the cases we have successfully met the expectations. But it might happen to fail and leave the project in a corner for a while. This can specifically take place while creating a product for a Competition. Though you are awarded and your hard work gets broadly appreciated the project doesn't go through production. This is for instance the case of Swing, rocking horse, realized in Spring 2004 by Margherita Colleoni, Samuele Meda e Daniele Torti during Capire un Tubo a Design Competition organized by BLM Group. This is a project coming out from the attempt to use the bending and laser cutting of steel pipes to give shape to a high-tech and evocative toy. This project was awarded as first classified by ADI, and it was first exhibited during the Salone del Mobile - in Milan 2004.

Usually, beeing a designer means working on different levels: from strategic to creative design to communication and retail design. While dealing with such a wide portfolio of activities it is possible to interfere with some of the companies figures responsible for marketing, branding, image,.... How do you normally interact with these professionals, and how do you optimize time in order to get the feedback and let information flow effectively?
Outsourced Designers are for a company external partners, and each collaboration needs the right mediator. If facing the right profile, our contribute can really let both the partnership and the product take off.
That's to say that any topic dealing with Industrial Design needs to be discussed with R&D or Product Managers, while anything related to Marketing and Communication has to refere to Brand ans Sales Managers, as well as to Marketing& Communication Directors. Well, that's the way we normally do...



FT&A Industrial Design
www.trabuccoassociati.com

Vortice
www.vortice.it
CDF Eletronica
www.cfd.it
Ariete
www.ariete.net
Nardi
www.nardispa.com
Canalplast
www.canalplast.it
Measurement Computing
www.measurementcomputing.com
Whirlpoool
www.whirlpool.it
Sica
www.sica-italy.com
Emmegi Seating
www.emmegiseating.com
Fantoni Group
www.fantoni.it
Microsystems
www.microsystems.it

edited by: 
Anna Russo 
Umberto Rovelli 

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in cooperation with:
Maria Angeles Fernandez



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