Carles Marquina

Since childhood, the three of us have been developing our sense of creativity, in addition to design, in fields such as music, dance, photography, computer science ... always working the self-taught spirit.

The studio was planned since we were in the same college class in Valencia, and we discovered our concerns and interests. Although before we founded it, we separated through Europe to finish our studies for returning with a better formation to Valencia, where we found it in 2015. And we are currently a design agency that offers services to companies, both nationally and internationally. And although we mainly focus on product design, we have also done everything from graphic design work to interior design and microarchitecture. As for the product design, sometimes we carry out the whole design process with all its phases, and other times we intervene in some specific aspect of product development that requires an improvement.

A tool that optimizes the objects and processes that surround us and that we use to live better.

We feel very comfortable working with designs dedicated to leisure and daily life, because they end up being the most fun. But we also like to deal with technical problems of complex products, which sometimes require us to learn about some new discipline.

We do not prefer any design, in general. We believe that each one is better or worse depending on the objective pursued.

Our first job was graphic design, it was a logo for a new brand of volcanic water. But our first product design work was an adapted version of one of our existing products.

We like material sincerity, but we do not have any preferred material, we like to use the solutions that work best for the purpose of each project. Although right now we are enjoying experimenting with 3D printing. We also have a special feelings to ceramics, a tradition rooted in our area, with which we work almost daily to make our Álsol pitcher.

Francesc: In general, I'm more creative when I'm walking around, by far different from when I'm sitting. Luis: The more ideas I have, the more I am facing concrete problems in order to find the solution that is the best and the most optimal. Carles: I have moments in which I unleash my creativity thanks to social environments

We focus on simplicity. We continually question whether our idea is the simplest and most efficient solution or whether it could be further optimized.

We usually feel amusingly euphoric when we solve the problem and get the solution. It is a very rewarding feeling.

We become euphoric and have a moment of nonsense. Sometimes we jump for joy.

The fact that the business objectives of the company are met with the highest possible efficiency.

In order to judge our designs, we only consider how it fulfills the previously defined objectives.

We think that a designer should have his own principles and follow them when choosing a job. The ethical and ecological criteria of each designer may be different and we may all be wrong, but the important thing is that you have taken them into account to use your principles and make decisions that you sincerely believe are the correct ones.

It seems to be gaining presence additive manufacturing and the design aimed at it, which allows great adaptability and customization. Also, old techinques are being revalued because of the romanticism they imply. Apparently, people will have more and more reasons to feel a special attachment to their objects.

The last one was in the Russafart 2016, an open day of artists and designers of the city of Valencia. We had been on quite a few exhibits before, but from that one we concentrated on preparing new jobs.

Depending on the nature of the project we look for inspiration on one site or another. So far we have been inspired by concepts such as Mediterranean culture, everyday life, craftwork ... Also in problems or desires that have marked us at some point.

We define it as functional and close. We believe that the design has to be used to meet objectives efficiently and bluntly. Even aesthetics we understand as a function, if we have to work on it. We like people to perceive and understand the value of design.

The three of us live in Valencia. This place has clearly inspired many of our works, based on the Valencian and Mediterranean lifestyle in general. We have also influenced the processes and materials we have used for products and packagings: ceramics, jute...

We invite everyone to come to our study to talk. In our study we chat and exchanged our ideas. We also invite them to see us work, and sometimes they do.

Let them take good care of their work and and not just their fame or reputation. And rationally decide if the designer's job fits your needs.

We first study the company and its environment, its competence, its general objectives and what it intends to achieve with the design. We try to synthesize their need well before approaching and generating ideas. Then we use our knowledge and tools to evaluate and improve them in detail.

Those in which we have worked: the chair, the pitcher, the glass, and the shelf and whatever it contains.

We get up at 8 and meet in the basement of Luis's grandmother in l'Eliana, where we have installed our studio-workshop. First we catch up with the common work, we organize and finally get to work until we have met our daily goals, beyond going on a fixed day. To gather strength, in the middle of the morning we make a break at 11:30 to have sandwiches with a beer.

We are still young, but we would tell them to talk to the experienced designers they know to try to avoid the mistakes they have made. We did it, and thanks to it we can now allow more advanced errors.

A positive thing about being a designer is to be able to face new and different problems in each job, avoiding routine or boredom. On the other hand, something frustrating in this work is to see how sometimes creativity is limited by the demand demands of time, which prevents to develop some good ideas as we would like. Although more than a negative aspect, we would say that this is part of the design challenge.

Always start from the most basic and simple concept with which you can represent a solution, and after that, question all the improvements that are proposed. Increasing the complexity of a solution should be avoided if it is not well justified.

Ability to observe the environment and people, to detect the key issues that lead to design opportunities. Also tolerance to error in generating ideas, but then you have to have a good rational judgment to filter them.

We use A1 sheets of paper where the three at the same time raise the problems and organize the ways of the solutions. Then, we make individual drawings on paper to develop them. And when the design is more advanced, we use the computer and software to optimize in detail and present the solution with the help of design programs, CAD tools and photorealistic images.

When we start a project, we divide the work into phases and distribute responsibilities, so that each one ensures that his work meets the correct times within the project objective. Every Monday we meet and check the workload and times. And we catch up three times a week.

It is difficult to say exactly what is considered the beginning of the design process, because you have already started when you are seeing processes and objects every day. And it is also risky to say that a design has an end, since to do this you have to be absolutely sure that in the future it can not be improved when, for example, a new technology appears or the users have modified their needs.

So far, we have been asked many times about what exactly we are dedicated to.

Our first great client. He contacted us through a 3D printing service that we made and with which he was very satisfied. From this simple work emerged a series of works dedicated to his company.

A Philippine volcanic water mark, a Valencian rock music band, a local public high school, an international emerging chain of restaurants ...

We have enjoyed furniture and household products designed according to our own goals. Goals that we had set ourselves. With these designs we introduce ourselves to the world and demonstrate our design skills. Some of them have been brought into production and have been released by ourselves, like the Álsol picther.

We expect to focus more exclusively on product design, catering to new companies that are looking for product design services of any kind.

We work as a team. Ideas have the participation of all of us in almost equal parts, either generating or developing them.

We have a design ready to be published as an open design. We are also working on some designs focused on 3D printing.

By any means of those that appear in our web. Phone, mail, filling out the form ... although what we really like is to pay us a visit in our studio.

As industrial designers, we come from the same university - the Polytechnic University of Valencia- and the design there is taught from an engineering perspective, that also explains why we give so much importance to function in our designs. Also, the three of us have a pretty artistic background either at music, painting, photography or dancing. We even keep on working on these aspects currently.

The studio was planned since we were in the same college class in Valencia, and we discovered our concerns and interests. Although before we founded it, we separated through Europe to finish our studies for returning with a better formation to Valencia, where we found it in 2015. And we are currently a design agency that offers services to companies, both nationally and internationally. And although we mainly focus on product design, we have also done everything from graphic design work to interior design and microarchitecture. As for the product design, sometimes we carry out the whole design process with all its phases, and other times we intervene in some specific aspect of product development that requires an improvement.

We like material sincerity, but we do not have any preferred material, we like to use the solutions that work best for the purpose of each project. Although right now we are enjoying experimenting with 3D printing. We also have a special feelings to ceramics, a tradition rooted in our area, with which we work almost daily to make our Álsol pitcher.

The thrill of creating something new while finding new ways to look at problems and paths to solve them. We usually feel amusingly euphoric when we solve the problem and get the solution. It is a very rewarding feeling.

Since childhood, the three of us have been developing our sense of creativity, in addition to design, in fields such as music, dance, photography, computer science ... always working the self-taught spirit.

Our dream project is the Smallgran studio itself. For us, it will mean to make a living out of our passion surrounded with the people we love, what else can we ask for?

For us it was a game changer to learn how to manage projects in an efficient and effective way, that certainly made us better designers.We also think that in order to have a good creative brain is important not only developing it through design but through other artistic fields.

We are just getting started! Honestly, if they perceive us already as winners, we honestly don't know how we have accomplished this so we don't really have much to say to them apart from "believe in yourself, work hard and keep at it and you will accomplish whatever you want". Being asked this question and being able to answer it in a couple of dozens of years is what would really mean something for us!

We get up at 8 and meet in the basement of Luis's grandmother in l'Eliana, where we have installed our studio-workshop. First we catch up with the common work, we organize and finally get to work until we have met our daily goals, beyond going on a fixed day. To gather strength, in the middle of the morning we make a break at 11:30 to have sandwiches with a beer.

Great design is atemporal, so it has to be the trend-setter. There are, however, lots of good designs that appear because of some trends. To be up-to-date, we each follow certain magazines, with the purpose of sharing the most outstanding news weekly.

Good design meets the business objectives of the company with the highest possible efficiency.

We try to use criteria as logical as possible. For us, good design is the rationality reached when each attribute of the product has a functional justification that shapes its design. If you have a specific goal, logic will determine the path.

We simply can't choose. We are a very young studio and every one of our designs is hugely important for us.Our Álsol pitcher was our first produced design and also the first one to get internation recognition, so maybe that one is just a tiny bit more important than the others. What makes it great, we think, is how it combines tradition with modernity getting the best out of these two worlds.On the other hand, we are in love with our Xanxan shelf, which we designed under objectives that we managed to achieve widely, it got the attention of the most important magazines and also won an award.

Bruno Munari and Mies van der Rohe are the most legendary designers we can think of that inspire us through their work. However, we also get inspired a lot by our local colleagues like "La Selva" or "La Mamba" studio!I (Carles) go for the Eames Lounge chair, it simply looks like comfort itself.Mamut by La Mamba or Loop by La Selva are also other great designs that explore flexibilty and adaptabilty in a very interesting manner.

The three of us live in Valencia. This place has clearly inspired many of our works, based on the Valencian and Mediterranean lifestyle in general. We have also influenced the processes and materials we have used for products and packagings: ceramics, jute...

Family and friends ar what matters most. At the end what matters is the support of the people you love.

We do a design close to the user where we aim to make discernible and tangible the value of the design process behind it. We try to avoid the elitist view on design where the look is the maximum priority.Progress and human development. Design is about solving problem, just kind of like everything else, really. ¿Who wouldn't invest on this?

It's the first award we receive and gave us confidence in ourselves, which is very important for a young studio like us.

As industrial designers, we come from the same university - the Polytechnic University of Valencia- and the design there is taught from an engineering perspective, that also explains why we give so much importance to function in our designs. Also, the three of us have a pretty artistic background either at music, painting, photography or dancing. We even keep on working on these aspects currently.

The thrill of creating something new while finding new ways to look at problems and paths to solve them. For us, design is the perfect blend between art and engineering.

We choose it. Actually our families have barely nothing to do with design. We were just passionate about this field and choose to dedicate our lives to it.

We do a design close to the user where we aim to make discernible and tangible the value of the design process behind it. We try to avoid the elitist view on design where the look is the maximum priority.

We are just getting started! Honestly, if they perceive us already as design legends, we honestly don't know how we have accomplished this so we don't really have much to say to them apart from "believe in yourself, work hard and keep at it and you will accomplish whatever you want". Being asked this question and being able to answer it in a couple of dozens of years is what would really mean something for us!

Regularity. Great designers are able to maintain the quality levels of their designs no matter what it is what problems they are facing.

For us, that is the rationality reached when each attribute of the product has a functional justification that shapes its design.

Progress and human development. Design is about solving problem, just kind of like everything else, really. ¿Who wouldn't invest on this?

It is the second part of the questin the really important one. What to design is really less relevant if the commissioner gives you enough freedom to explore and reach the optimal solution. I (Luis) wouldn't mind to work for any space agency. I (Francesc) would like to design something for the music field, and I'm sure Carles also likes this idea.

Our dream project is the Smallgran studio itself. For us, it will mean to make a living out of our passion surrounded with the people we love, what else can we ask for?

We do have a recipe at our studio, literally. It consists of scrambled eggs in a baguette bread, our daily "almuerzo" -which is a meal that takes place in between breakfast and lunch at around 11 AM-.

Bruno Munari and Mies van der Rohe are the most legendary designers we can think of that inspire us through their work. However, we also get inspired a lot by our local colleagues like "La Selva" or "La Mamba" studio!

I (Carles) go for the Eames Lounge chair, it simply looks like comfort itself. Mamut by La Mamba or Loop by La Selva are also other great designs that explore flexibilty and adaptabilty in a very interesting manner.

We simply can't choose. We are a very young studio and every one of our designs is hugely important for us. Our Álsol pitcher was our first produced design and also the first one to get internation recognition, so maybe that one is just a tiny bit more important than the others. What makes it great, we think, is how it combines tradition with modernity getting the best out of these two worlds.

For us it was a game changer to learn how to manage projects in an efficient and effective way, that certainly made us better designers. We also think that in order to have a good creative brain is important not only developing it through design but through other artistic fields.

Probably any other field in which we could also develop our creativity: music, dancing, science...

Design for us means solving daily problems and satisfying needs from a functional perspective that guides the aesthetic outcome.

Family, friends, at the end what matters is the support of the people you love.