Marc Sadler: Creative blendings

Creative contaminations represent opportunities and sometimes solutions to project-related needs or aspirations. It’s like having access to an entire library, and when writing a new book, you can explore various literary genres to breathe new life into a style and narrative language different from previous ones. In the field of design, it means learning from past experiences or from different industries, experimenting without prejudice with processes, materials, colours, and surfaces that may initially seem unrelated to the project but can turn into surprising opportunities.

I have often been influenced to the point of making U-turns, both in my work and life. One of the first and most important people was undoubtedly Roger Tallon, my professor at Ensad, who introduced me to the concept of esthétique industrielle, as design was called in France at the time. He explained the difference between projects for industry, with the necessary technical constraints linked to production processes, costs, targeting, and distribution, and free projects, without constraints, influenced only by one’s creative and artistic ability. This balance between reason and instinct has always fascinated me.

Globalisation has been and continues to be crucial in bringing good design to different parts of the world, and good design is always the result of past and present experiences, sometimes limited to specific areas of the world (I’m thinking of certain forms of craftsmanship) that, thanks to globalisation, become common heritage. Despite the risk of standardisation, I don’t see it as a negative element.

I have always tried to do my job to the best of my ability, striving to meet my client’s needs and the demands behind my commission, without aiming for “Copernican revolutions.” There have been times when a project became quite significant—I’m talking about the back protector for @daineseofficial, which went from being equipment for motorcycle riders to a vital tool for safeguarding the health (and sometimes the life) of both professional and amateur athletes. Is that good design? I certainly remain faithful to the old design axiom where form is important, but function even more so; and when the two are combined in the best way, that’s when you hit the jackpot!

Study, observe, listen. Learn the history of design, understand the great designers of the past and present and why they are considered great, know both industrial and artisanal techniques, and be an insatiably curious person. Design is truly everything, from the chair to the plough to the heart valve, and there’s no limit to the possibility of creating objects that are beautiful, functional, and today, also economically and environmentally sustainable. In this regard, many products on the market are obsolete, and a skilled designer of the future will have to provide new solutions without forgetting what has been done up to now.

I’m curious about all of them; I’m open to new experiences and like to think there isn’t a field where there’s nothing more to say or invent.

There are many sources of inspiration, everywhere, and they’re quite classic: nature (flora and fauna are often masterpieces of design), books, exhibitions, films, history, and the products of human ingenuity! I don’t have any particular ritual, other than being a keen and curious observer. I often find myself inspired by what surrounds me quite by chance.

Certainly, in those moments I devote myself to DIY or gardening. It relaxes me, although in the end, I often fall back into thinking about projects because ideas come at unplanned intervals, and when they do, there’s an urgency to see if they’re any good. I also enjoy painting, but since it’s a form of personal expression, I have a complicated, not very relaxed relationship with it.

Quite a few, but I won’t name names! In industrial design, the success of a project is linked to its commercial success—it must be sold and generate income. When this doesn’t happen, it’s a problem because often there are substantial investments involved. The reasons for failure vary and can be due to both the designer and the entrepreneur. A project might be misinterpreted or poorly designed by the designer, or the product might lack quality due to the entrepreneur’s production limitations, or there could be a lack of promotion or disorganized distribution. Certainly, if there’s good dialogue and constructive engagement between the designer and the business from the outset, these risks are reduced.

In my career, I’ve certainly experienced both success and failure, but despite the disappointments, everything has contributed to the wealth of experience that I continue to apply to new projects.

In the past I have been a collector, from stamps to other things, and like any good collector I was often frustrated by not getting to own ‘that very rare specimen’. Feeling imprisoned by these passions at some point I decided that I no longer wanted to have any addiction or affection for any kind of object. However, one thing that I would find it hard to part with is a model train, of a rather important scale, that I found by chance at a junk shop on the Naviglio in Milan, and which comes from Orenstein & Koppel, a German mechanical company that built large machines and locomotives for which my father had worked. A surprising and significant intersection, not to mention that I really like the object itself.