Interviews with Mario Taepper

Before I started my design career I thought studying languages , that really interested me but while studying I discovered my love for design. While studying me my wife and started with our company MM Design Edition. Accessories were our first objects , followed by lamps and a little furniture. We started to expose in the IMM in Cologne and at the Ambiente Fair in Francort. I was influenced by nobody. Being a designer was always my target.

I am so happy that I am highly gifted with fantasy. I am not searching convulsively for new design. When I have an idea I am working it out in my brain, and then I start with some sketches and mostly I let them lie unfinished.After some time I start over it again. If possible I make a little prototype by myself or I start to make the 3D picture.

Creating new design makes me always happy. Every step you go through is having different emotions. From the first idea to the final 1: 1 product is really exciting. At the beginning stands the question will the final product correspond to the first idea you had. My emotions do accompany during the whole design process.

I am dreaming of creating another 1 million pieces design, like the S/P set TWO IN ONE. I want be remebered as designer who stands for a clear line, and outstanding design. My biggest wish is to realize my OLED lamp collection which consists meanwhile out of 20 designs, but for the time being Oled panels are to expensive. Oled will be the future and gives so fantastic new possibilities.

This is a very difficult question and I cannot give any advice because everyone must do his own experience.Some have to fight others have the luck being suddenly pushed by the press and everybody in the branch is talkingabout the person.

I have very less contact to other collegues , that was my whole life through , so I cannot suggest anything.

Everyday when I come in my office I first check my e-mails. Then if necessary I do some telefon conversation.Doing appointments are standing on my days agenda. I never stop thinking positive that helps a lot.

I have quite a good design library which I am going through from time to time. Some monthly appearing journals I do study in the evening My fantasy is my inspiration and while walking through the woods I can work out so many things.

When I have a new idea and I have realized it in 3D or as a little model I show it to my best friends and we talk about it, I like critics but when I am convinced of what I did I try to defend it.

It is just a feeling that says me let it be like it is, I am satisfied. You always can improve things but mostly you don't see it yourself.

I am very proud of my table and floor lamp TUBI ( the name is coming from the italian word " tubo" ) This lamp consists out of 2 tubes ( therefor TUBI. This lamp is on the market for 27 years and is still selling. I wanted to create a lamp with joints which are on the market simply to reduce costs for developping new joints. This lamp was made with halogen technic first but now me changed to LED technic. I am currently working on OLED lamps.

Ingo Maurer is for outstanding design and I like Ross Lovegrove. I would have liked to talk to Mies van der Rohe.

Inspiring cities are for me Paris, Venice, London, Rom. Music is for me very inspiring ,mainly piano music fromChopin, Gottschalk , Beethoven ,Satie and others. Good design is necassary to make life more beautiful andinspiring to everybody.

I work alone. For me my business partners must have a good charisma , a sense of humour and must be positive and uncomplicated . The same caracteristics should my clients for whom I do interior decoration.

Humanitarian project are very important, I did not have the chance to give a contribution. Good design should never get old but to verify this gets more and difficult.

I was very proud having got A'Design Award ( in Gold) last year. But until now it did not bring me along very much.I had contact to the italian blog ( Arscity) there were no demands for designing this or that product. I don't knowwhy but there is still a chance. Anyway design competitions are necessary , they are confirmation and publicity.

I have studied art in Berlin and so aswell I came into contact with design. I founded my own company MM Design Edition. I started to design accessories.

It was always my aim to create something that survives me. That was my greatest motivation.

I choosed it myself.

Accessoireis and lamps.

Every designers should find his answer.

If you never getting tired watching good design and you always get the same emotions.

Difficult question.

Good design survives all times.

That I cannot specify.

I like very much what the BAUHAUS people did.

My lamp TUBI. Meanwhile 30 years on the market.

Nothing important.

What is simple and beautyful.

I had no supporter. I wished I had had one.

I am not so arrogant naming me a great designer.

That you depend on one personal opinion.

No answer.

A new glas collection for one of the eldest companies for crystal gals in Russia.

To see this glas collection on the marvket.

I cannot answer this quetsion !

I don't if design creates a better society, because good design is not cheap.

See answer 22.

It is always the last one !

That is very difficult to answer because we don't know where our world is going. The future will we totally

different to what we have now. Perhaps future needs no more design ?!

That depends . Sometimes faster sometimes slowlier.

Like Albert Einstein said: Design must be as simple as possible but not simplier.

Difficult to anwer.

This is my secret.

These questions are answered by trends researchers.

How did you come to this idea ?!

Why did'nt I this idea ?

I always worked by myself.

think it was the literature about the BAUHAUS.

I just followed my natural instinct.

Difficult question.

No , I am just thankful !

black and white, la Provence, pasta and risotto, summer, Armani.

As I designed my salt/pepper shaker TWO IN ONE I was going around before I went to a concert. I saw i a window

a salt and pepper shaker from Jensen/Denmark. I said to myself that must be done something easier. The whole concert I was thinkin and listing to the music. At the end I said to my wife, that's it . The same night I made a model.

Hearing classical music and use my eyes and looking around.

I was always woking with all sorts of boxes but my father did not mention it , he had the only idea me becoming a doctor.

If I would know I would tell you .

I don't know if I have some.And if "yes" I would appreciate that they like what I do.

When I was a child I always used to play with boxes. My father was a doctor and he gave me all the empty boxes where ampoules and pills were in. As a grown-up I wanted to be an interior architect. But I started studying languagesand then I studied design.

We have a small studio,we started first doing all by ourselves but that became more and more difficult when clients don't pay their bills especially when the come from foreign countries. I decided then only to make the design and work together with diffenrent companies.

Designing is for me very important, I like very much to play with forms. Design should be as simple as possible and should be agreable to watch even after years.

I don't focus on any special product , I just follow my thoughts. For the time being I focus on light especially OLEDlight , this is a complete new way of interpreting light.

The most favorite design of me is the salt and pepper shaker TWO IN ONE I did for WMF. This product was sold 1 Million pieces in 10 years and it is still selling very well . This design is oustanding.

The first thing I designed was lamp collection " Betula" for YCAMI. But the company meanwhile doesn't exist anymore.

For accessoiries I prefer stainless steel and for lamps I prefer allumium and lighting material LED, OLED.

When there is a theme for a new product then it is as being pregnant, and suddenly after some time the prdouct is ready in my head and it has only be realized in 3D or sometimes 3D print.

I can't help but the important for me is the form it must perceived with the senses.

I am just relaxed and I am curious to know if the product is realizable.

I am just happy and content that sees the significance of my design.

That is difficult to answer , it would be better to ask the customers.The right idea to the rihgt moment.

For me first of all the form of a design is most important.

Today a designer is demanded to create things with long durability and even after years you don't get not tired watching them, the materials must recyclable.

That is a difficult question and if would know the answer I would do so. It will be more and more difficult to find a realy non existing design. I remember a saying of Charles H.Duell in the American office of Patents (1899)."All what can be invented. has been invented already."

My last exhibition is long ago and there are plans until now for next one.

I don't sit at my working -table waiting for the ideas to come. They just come and I make a little sketch and later on I filter and I concentrate on it and work it out.

I am a follower of the Bauhaus. What was created there is still on the market and the design are still beautiful and on the market.

In Germany in NRW. look question 18. I don't focus on the pro and the con.

It depends, sometimes the company ask me designing something or I asked if the company might be interested in having this or that design.

I would never suggest something to a company. How companies select I have no idea but I did answer myself how is procedure of selecting.

Please look question 17 !

The lamp TUBI, the bench CLIP, the salt and pepper shaker TWO IN ONE , the closet TORI and a candle holder fromthe collection TABULA NOVA and of course the Erdnussschütte.

Every day is different and beautiful. I enjoy every day being healthy and satisfied.

I would suggest that they should inform themselves very carefully if that what they want to design is really new or if it is just a me too product and being very critically.

Negative for me is that the press is making some designer great and they then they can do every design and others who are as quite good have to work harder. Positive is that you belong to those who can enrich life of others.

Not to copy any other design. I have made bad expierences . The lamp TUBI was copied 4 times , TWO IN ONE wascopied once.

Creativety!

books are a good source of inspiration, sometimes for doing something better. 3 D printer of makerbot,cinema 3D

I don't see designing as consuming task , I just like what I do and I have no problem managing my time.

That differs very much wether it is a little accessory or a lamp or a furniture.

How did you get the idea.

The most important job experience was that having a good idea you are copied at onceand you can do very few against.

WMF , Carl Mertens, Tramontina, Pott, Christine Kröncke , Müller Mödelwerkstätten, Schönecker Leuchten, Promemoria, etc

The most I enjoy of my design is the salt and pepper shaker. This day I won't forget because it was before going into a concert. Before we walked around and I saw a salt and pepper set from JENSEN . I said to myself that should be possible to make it different and so the idea of TWO IN ONe was born. Coming home at night I verified a model in paper.

To realize more furniture, and some OLED lamps.

I develop my design by myself.

Some designs are in progress but I never talk in advance until realization is secure.

Via e-mail .

all is said.