ASS (Anna Stephan-Schmid): How did you both get into design?
AR (Ana Relvão): I actually didn't know what design was. I didn't know anyone who was a designer or had anything to do with this field. Even when I started my design studies, I wasn't sure what I was doing. Until a professor gave us the task to design a lamp. Until then, I thought it was about creating a kind of sculpture, say a fish or something similar. I really didn't know what it should be. But then the professor said to me, "When you design a lamp, it's not about the lamp, it's about the light." You have to think about the light bulb that emits a certain kind of light. So, you need to protect the user's eyes from it. Consider how one accesses the light. How do you turn the lamp on and off? At that moment, I realized it's not about decoration, but about use, function, and a combination of different challenges that need to be solved. That was a pivotal moment for me.
ASS: Gerry, was there a moment when you thought, "Okay, I want to do this"?
GK (Gerhardt Kellermann): Yes, when I was still a student, I went to the orientation days at the Stuttgart Academy of Art. I had no connection to design or product design before. When I looked at the industrial design program and saw what they were doing, I was immediately fascinated. I wanted to study industrial design because the students showed projects about innovation and how to design new products from experiments. A student built a gecko machine that could climb windows. I also remember a potato bazooka that shot potatoes with air pressure. It wasn't just about giving something a shape, but inventing a completely new function. The study program's goal was not just design and creation but real innovation.
ASS: Is that what still fascinates you about design?
GK: Yes, for many projects, the form comes at the end. The initial process, as Ana mentioned, the thought processes, are more important. It's about really engaging with the topic, going into detail, considering why we need this product. Why design another one when almost everything already exists? Why another phone, another monitor, another gadget? We always consider why we should redesign something if it doesn't bring anything new for the user.
ASS: Why should students learn about design in school?
AR: I think it's essential, even if they don't yet understand what design is. The goal is to introduce tools of creative thinking. As a child, you start questioning everything. Why is this or that the way it is? And as you grow older, you stop doing that. That's why it's essential to remind teenagers that you can think differently, like about what light is. If something has always been around you, you stop questioning it. It was lovely to see, through the work of the tandems, that the students began to ask, "Why is this this way? What's its materiality?" They began to perceive things differently and ask many questions about things they previously took for granted. For me, the primary goal is that as a student, you learn something about design. We need to start thinking about things differently, perceive them differently.
GK: I'd add that we need to overcome this cliché that design is just about giving a product a beautiful shape. It's about the thoughts before that. Why are things the way they are? Why can't they be better or different? The result of these thoughts is the design and its shape. We have to teach students the thought processes behind the products.
AR: But we shouldn't forget about the form because it's part of the problem. We often experience that someone is obsessed with form, always starting from the form. In our opinion, the form always comes from a requirement. When you approach a project or a creative challenge that no one has solved before, you need to find a form that hasn't existed before, which will change everything. That's the great advantage of this profession.
GK: This is an engagement with a topic that is approached completely neutrally and without prejudice. You try to think about objects or tasks almost childishly. You approach them creatively, trying to design something new without constantly repeating what you've learned. You need to break out of the familiar. This doesn't only apply to design, but any project – you just have to go ways that no one has gone before.
ASS: How would you introduce someone who's had little to no contact with design?
AR: First and foremost, one must understand design. One must realize that design is about solving tasks, problems, and situations creatively. This is the first thing you need to convey. What's the point in designing a lamp if it's just about an arbitrary form or something through which I somehow feel represented in the world? When you start to analyze situations and find solutions and elements that can be transferred from one world to another, and then combine them to create something new, that's when it gets interesting. Design means that thinking is happening. This must be conveyed from the first contact with design.
GK: I think we saw this quite well in the "wedesign" project, that there's a wide range of approaches to break out of these classical patterns, structures, and shapes. In the end, everyone has to find their own path. In educational work, it's about getting someone to think differently, to approach things anew or reinterpret them. For this, you have to throw students into the deep end from time to time. Especially when there's such a structured daily routine and curriculum, otherwise you can't break out. The most important thing is to give them the freedom to try things out without immediately pressing for a result. And the interesting thing is that everyone deals with it differently. One is more creative in the hands-on process, another gets more involved in the project, and a third provides support. Because there's no structured task plan, everyone generates their own task, perhaps subconsciously, which they can best solve. Therefore, it's also very good to understand your own process. What am I actually good at? What am I interested in when I'm not working on an assigned task, but creating my own?
AR: That's also an interesting approach to grading. Why not consider how much the student was able to let go? Did he or she grasp the core message? Because it's about this message and not about what you end up doing with it. How capable are you of changing your thinking? Did someone really understand this message or did they resist it and cling to their pre-existing thinking? You can observe this very well and grade based on that.
ASS: What ways are conceivable to promote this letting go in the design process?
AR: There are many phases in the design process and one must allow a fluid approach to it. But when you experiment, you really open up your mind and then you have to open it as wide as possible to receive as many inspirations as possible. But then there comes a moment when the problems become quite concrete that you have to solve. At this point, you have to say: "Okay, I've gathered a lot of information, now I have to narrow it down and solve specific tasks." That's what it's about. There's a phase of opening up, which is usually the research and analysis phase. And then comes the conception phase where things really start and you have to delve more concretely into the solution process. In this phase, some students also joined the "wedesign" project. And it was wonderful to see that this is possible even in such a short time.
Interview RELVĀOKELLERMANN for wedesign - Design X Schools