Designing furniture and products for mass production also means keeping an eye on profitability. What is your role as a designer in this respect?

There’s something magical about crafting something for someone who will actually use it. It’s one of the oldest human activities. It is based on mutual respect and pleasure. One of the downsides of today’s civilisation is that customers rarely get to know the makers. Not so long ago, you’d go to a furniture maker and ask him to make you a table and some chairs. This led to fruitful discussions: “What do you want? What do I have? What’s your budget?” The best part of this dialogue was the empathy on both sides – each person understood the other’s context. My goal is to make salespeople and manufacturers happy and proud of the product, so that they can naturally explain its quality and construction. That’s where the real profitability lies.

“Mynt” for Vitra is a slim office chair that gives off a feeling of lightness. Was that the intention during the development process?

I’d say we were looking for the best possible minimum. Office chairs have become increasingly complex, with more and more adjustment options. Many of them have a visual impact that isn’t very inviting. That’s where we started – to find the best minimum. This means, first and foremost, using as little material and resources as possible. This often leads to efficient construction, which in turn leads to a kind of elegance as a natural result.

“Mynt’ features a newly designed mechanism which allows the seat and back to move independently.

The working day is becoming less rigid. There isn’t just one type of task that is repeated over and over again. So you need chairs that are more fluid, that can work with any type of task, any situation, any person. The mechanism in ‘Mynt‘ creates a relaxed state – your body quickly understands what it’s supposed to do. You almost end up surfing on the chair.

You’ve had a long relationship with Vitra. Back in 2002, you and your brother Ronan designed the Joyn table system. What was it like, as a young design duo, to work with a major international company on such a complex product?

I think part of the strategy of Rolf Fehlbaum (then CEO of Vitra and son of the company’s founder) was to develop a new approach to office environments. Simply put, offices at the time looked like outdated images – big grey computers and lots of very specific furniture for very specific functions. Most designs were very functional and perhaps well executed, but the downside was that the workspace became trapped in its own paradigm. Rolf wanted us to design from the point of view of creatives, people who invent their own ways of working – like designers or architecture studios. Because they mix the typology of a workplace with that of a workshop and reconfigure the space according to the project. ‘Design something that suits you. Don’t try to imagine what other types of work might need, because you’ll just end up copying. Even if it’s designed for your own context, it’s probably more universal than you think’. He was very open and also protective – he shaped me. I owe him a lot.

It is said that simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. Do you agree?

When you look at a tree, everything is balanced and easy to understand. You can see immediately that a tree would never waste resources unnecessarily. Simplicity can be achieved by focusing on structural quality, comfort and lightness. More often than not, these considerations result in something that feels very natural to our eyes and instincts – and that we’re quick to accept. It may not be the most surprising or impressive piece of art, but our instincts will appreciate the quality of the construction.

How do you achieve innovation in the design process? Can it be forced?

This may come as a surprise, but a key element is patience. What do I mean by that? A design project usually takes time to reveal its own constraints and opportunities. You often discover them during the first iterations, and these iterations gradually reboot the project. I’ve learned to wait. Nowadays I say that I don’t really want to “create” – I prefer to discover problems and solve them creatively. This strategy forces me to take things one step at a time and always listen.

You grew up in the countryside, in Brittany. How did this environment shape your childhood?

What sums it up for me is the lack of conscious cultural markers. I grew up in an environment where things were made out of necessity, using as few resources as possible – and constantly being transformed. This taught me to see the potential in everything and to understand that work always creates bonds between people. That makes for an incredible culture, even if it seems unintentional.

What influence has this experience of the countryside had on your work as a designer?

I hate cultural markers that are used as a tool for segregation. Maybe that comes from my simple life in the country. Sometimes design tries too hard to create value through surprise or excitement, which can lead to a limited audience and a short-lived impact. I feel uncomfortable with that kind of design.