Interviewe mat Smallgran

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.

The most direct principle has been material reduction. We know that it is vital for the planet and that, commercially, is very advantageous, we see it constantly in examples like Ikea.

As an inspiration, we are obliged to mention (although It was not consciously or explicitly in the design process) the clothes rack that is very common in the Mediterranean lands.

Xanxan was first conceived under the challenge of reducing the material cost and ecological impact of an existing concept. We were specifically looking for an unexploited product category in which we could contribute with fresh ideas.

This product is currently available on a small scale basis. We are looking for companies interested in producing an industrial scale to ultimately reduce its costs.

We started the project in the Polytechnical University of Valencia, where its first 5 months of development took part, reaching the concept stage. After finishing our degrees and creating the studio, the design process was summarized and finished after 7 more months of work.

This design was born from a personal project. We are convinced that the formal reduction of a concept without sacrificing its functionality is one of the reasons for design. And as we are convinced that this product achieves this goal, we were quite clear that we should make it a reality to exemplify the values we want to convey through Smallgran.

We are looking for companies interested in producing and distributing this product. Our priority right now is to find a company with which to produce it on an industrial scale. That was our intention in designing it. However, if we observe sufficient demand and we do not find producers, we are planning to produce it ourselves.

We detected a market opportunity and found a solution that allowed us to improve an existing concept in a new and impressive way. As a young studio, it was the ideal design to capture the attention of the design world and to win awards.

Sure, everything influences everything. But at a conscious level during the design process we did not have any so I could not tell you specific names.

People curious, playful and different, who is not afraid to do things differently.

Obviously, right? Compare it with a normal shelf, it has nothing to do. That was one of our goals. Since if we had designed something that looked too much like a normal shelf, we would not have been able to differentiate it so much that people would pay attention to it.

It's pretty silly, just like us. Xanxan is what sounds in movies in moments of tension (at least in Spanish), and tension is the protagonist in this design.

This project involved some old-fashioned methods. Most consisted of experimentation and prototyping, so we used many workshop tools to create and test the different systems we were weighing.

It must be the tension. It is an element that is not usually present in furniture products and here, we not only introduce it, but we give it a leading role.

In the detail design phase we work with workshop technicians and artisan carpenters from our land to optimize materials and form.

It is a rather important role, even if it does not seem so. The technology we use for string tensioning is extremely simple, which is not easy to achieve, and we had a hard time developing it (although just because of its simplicity I would not dare to say that we discovered it or that it is exclusive of this design).

This project was driven mainly by market research and experimentation. Starting from the goal of reducing the material cost and ecological impact of an existing concept we started to study companies as big as Ikea in order to understand their approach and to find an unexploited product category in which we could contribute with fresh ideas. We have decided that we should be able to develop our initial goal while delivering an interesting and new design proposal. From that point on, it was mainly creativity and experimentation but always with the goal of meeting the requirements for shelves, fixed by the best-selling shelves in the market to ensure our product's viability.

The main design challenge we encountered was to develop a solution that would feel new and creative while fulfilling the initial goal of reducing the material cost and ecological impact of an existing product concept. From the technical perspective, this product posed three main challenges: 1. Developing a tensioning mechanism for the strings. It had to fix the strings, allowing for progressive tensioning without the need to disassemble the product and we needed to keep it simple in order to maintain the cost low. 2. Finding a wood that is light-weight and cheap but at the same time resistant and resistant enough to withstand the tension of the strands. 3. Finding a rope that holds its mechanical and dimensional properties over time, and is cheap, lightweight and feels good.

After getting some press, we were contacted by the Design Award staff and they told us they wanted us in the competition. It was the first time we got an invitation like that and we were pretty thrilled, plus the prize was aligned with our views of this product's future (getting a company to produce it) so we accepted.

We already knew designing things to be simple was very difficult, but we had never done it. It turned out to be extremely difficult, but we love a good challenge.

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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.

We are not great designers! Yet!

Above all, the money. If you have an economic base to help you get started I think it makes things a bit easy and in fact all the obstacles we have faced have been financially related.

I think the best way to appreciate design is not to see it, but to use it. That makes an in person presentation the best way to present it.

That depends on our clients! We have, however, bought a 3D printer so we will try to get the most out of it.

Bring the design closer to the people, allowing anyone to appreciate the design in all its aspects, not just the aesthetic.

Being a very young studio trying to make a name for ourselves, I think what our public expects is that we give our 100% in every project. We are still young and full of energy, so that is also something that guides them to think this way.

Just as any other field helps society: by constantly solving problems.

3d printing. We believe that is going to significantly influence the immediate future of design, so we must be a part of it.

Practically any of what we have done so far, since many of them are of own initiative and come from ourselves.

We would like to see more established companies helping young designers and entrepreneurs to develop their projects in an entusiastic way. It's not very common to find one that does, but the truth is that we have been lucky to find some of them and owe a lot to these kind of companies and from here we thank them for all their support.

As I said, I believe that the immediate future of design goes through a compression, study and development of 3D printing. Further ahead, we have computational creativity and everything that comes with AI development. From that point on, we have no idea of what can happen.

Well, it depends a lot on the project nature and also on what company we depend to carry it out and how closely we can work with them.

Planning, I think we have a great process at Smallgran. We develop what we call project files where everything about the project must be reflected and from there we start to set organize everything.

Less is more.

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. All in all, we would say it is a symbiotic relationship between the two.

Technology is great! It empowers us, really. We wouldn't be as great at organization and planning without computers, prototyping would take forever or cost too much if we couldn't rely on machining tools or 3D printing, etc... It is essential! That's why we try to keep us updated on every new technology that can be applied into the design process.

Luis: We mainly use Adobe and Autodesk software, we are also very lucky to have our own workshop (originally wood working workshop from my grandfather that we are slowly expanding) in which we carry on a lot of manual work and experimentation.

Color and ambient are important, but we certainly put materials above them. We love products that show the materials they’re made of without painting or misleading coatings, and we try to respect and celebrate the original materials of a product in every single one of our designs.

The history behind it. People are very often captivated by the look of a design, but they rarely ask about the reasons of why it looks that way, of what defines that shape.

It’s very hard not to think “why I didn’t come up with this earlier”. But apart from that I instantly want to learn more about the designer and also want to let everyone know how good a design that is.

The final user, hands down. I do believe in co-design, but I think it requires a very efficient and strong leadership that I don’t think any of us has reached yet. We’re only 25!

We are pretty young and new to this design world, so it must be our teachers. On this specific project though, we worked with some carpenters that gave us very valuable insights about the materials and shapes that definitely affected the outcome.

It is necessary to cite some classics like: “How the objects are born” of Bruno Munari or “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman. Less design-related but also influential have been “Mindset” by Carol Dweck.

Working and creating real projects. Failing, learning and advancing. There is no other way. It is vital to surround yourself with people who hate you to tell you how bad your design is.

Albert Einstein, but time and space would be the matter.

It is great to feel the love and support from all the people around you. Also very important to us is to know we’re in the right path and this awards and recognitions certainly show that. We haven’t felt any signs of fame, so there must be something wrong there.

Luis: blue, a Mediterranean cove, falafel, summer, 3DPrinter and SpaceX

Carles: green, anywhere with my friends, paella, summer, musical instruments and Barilla.

Francesc: blue, Valencian terrace, potatoes, spring, music and Fender.

Going for the first time to the Stockholm Design Fair as an exhibitor on a Designboom stand just a few months after creating the studio was pretty funny. All the other designers were thoroughly prepared with merchandising stuff, and we only had brought the products with us, so we had to work against the clock and basically develop a branding for ourselves in order to pretend we were at their level.

For me (Luis) a creativity session is always a great way to fix my day, even if I’m sad (I actually love it when I’m sad because it allows me to explore some areas of my creativity I usually don’t). We are a small studio composed only of designers with a kind of well-thought plan consisting of several projects that each one of us manage, so seeing as the projects come together and get completed is our great motivator.

We didn’t know that we wanted to be designers until we had to enroll on the University. So, if somebody saw it as obvious he never told me (Luis).

I (Luis) am looking forward to IA and their ways to tackle creative challenges. I’m pretty confident this is going to happen in the next 100 years and I think that whatever comes after that is going to be unfathomable.

We are pretty simple guys, so if we really have some fans out there we would love to hear from them. Please engage with us on social media and ask us whatever you want! We will be very pleased to know that you enjoy what we do and it’ll definitely help us to go forward!

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.