Giorgio Bonaguro is a designer with an engineering background. He approached product and interior design at SPD. Since then he has worked in several design studios acquiring a solid comprehension of the development process. His interests range over a variety of fields: furniture, interior, packaging and lighting design.
With Tweety from an extreme economy of means you have obtained a piece with a strong iconicity. How did you come up with such an idea?
The idea of this lamp came from the concept of “reduction”. Starting from the consideration that nowadays many companies cannot invest in complex projects, and from my personal belief that a good design product should be enjoyable, accessible to many, and as cheap as possible.
Color becomes a graphic sign, an emphasis…
The idea was just to “hang” the light source to its structure, without closing it inside or blocking it. What came to mind immediately was the birdies we see in comics, and therefore it was natural to highlight this aspect with a beautiful “Canary” yellow, and all the other colors just followed consequentially.
Joys and sorrows of self-production?
Nowadays, we hear a lot about self-production, and it is a
very stimulating and creative (actually doubly creative) path. One has to think of a good product and of a good way to sell it.
Personally I don’t consider it an alternative to industrial production, which due to its nature it requires important productive investments.
“Making with little”… how much are you interested in exploring this field?
This is one of the bases from which I try (and not always succeed) to develop a project: I do so both to design quality products, at reasonable prices, and because it appears to me that this is the real starting point for a more sustainable and social design. I believe it is impossible that there cannot be something in between IKEA chairs and a “design product”.
Ali Filippini, Professor of History of Design at SPD. Collaborates as a journalist with specialized and online magazines. Recently he has curated with Odoardo Fioravanti the Industrious Design Exhibition at the Triennale di Milano (2010) and with Gian Maria Sforza the project Degni di nota (Berlin 2011, Milan 2012).