In my recent travels abroad on exchange in Europe, I got to stop by London and speak with RISD Alumnus Sandra Chung (Architecture ’01), who is currently working at PearsonLloyd, a studio designing things from airline interiors too furniture. I asked her a few questions about the company; her opinions on design, and of course some advice for young designers. Interestingly, I did not know Sandra was a RISD alumnus when I contacted PearsonLloyd for this interview; I simply wanted to find out more about real world practices, especially in London, from professionals. That just goes to show you never know where that RISD connection might pop up, and you shouldn’t be afraid of contacting companies out there!
Could you give me a little background information about PearsonLloyd (PL)?
PL started in 1997. As you can see, we are quite a small studio with 10-13 people. We do mainly furniture design, but it ranges from contract furniture, to transport, to public realm, to interiors, to way finding, things like that. It’s interesting because our directors, which are Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson, who started this company, both have training in industrial design as well as furniture design. Their approach towards design in general is on one side there’s the industrial design, engineering, rational approach to it and then you’ve got the furniture side, which is a lot softer. It’s kind of the balance between the two that create great design.
Our notable projects to date include Virgin Atlantic; we did their upper class suite, and premium and economy classes. Most recently we’ve been working on a furniture range for a company called Bene, which is the piece you’re sitting in right now. It’s more to do with not simply just designing furniture, but more finding out people’s habits in interactions, and what we can do to make those interactions better, especially today with technology people change the way they move around the office.
I would say that’s the gist of what we do.
What is a typical way PL approaches a new project or a new client?
I think it’s very hard to say. There’s always an underlying methodology, but you cannot approach projects all in the same way. Different things require different investigations.
I would say 40% of the project is figuring out what you’re designing. For example, a research project we did for the healthcare industry, which was a commode, we were working out why are we designing this? What do we need the thing to do? And who is using it? And that investigation itself is a very key part of the project. Once you do that, you find out what the insights are, then we would start doing concepts, schematics, design details, then it goes to design engineering and then you get your results at the end. But there are other projects that are a little softer, its more about just an idea that you want to implement, or it might be more about how you can use a new type of engineering to create a better chair or a better table, marrying traditional methods with new thinking. I wouldn’t say there’s always one methodology, but that’s some of ways we would do a design project.
What is the typical day of a designer here?
That’s hard to say, since everyone does different things. You can see that most people are on their computers all day, since we do a lot of cad work. But on the flip side we also do a lot of model making. If you’re asking specifically about Tom and Luke, they spend their time basically just chatting to everyone in the office, looking over their shoulder when they’re designing, talking, deliberating, maybe throwing out a few sketches. But I wouldn’t say there’s quite a typical day. It always varies.
As you know, at RISD we have an emphasis on traditional skills such as model making and sketching as well as computer skills. How does this translate to the workplace? What is the balance between traditional skills and computer skills?
I think good model making skills is definitely very valuable in this office. But nowadays you can’t do without CAD work. Its great to have traditional skills like sketching which is very important, but you can’t do without knowing CAD software.
Someone who has a good hand in terms of sketching, we love it. It’s actually not common nowadays. There’s a difference between being able to draw beautifully and being able to express your ideas. I think that needs to be understood. A lot of designers just doodle on the page, but sometimes that doodle can tell much more than a fantastic drawing with lots of bells and whistles. But still, if we had a portfolio come in with beautiful sketches that is something that would impress us and would be something we would be interested in seeing more of.
In your opinion, what is the role of designers in today’s society and economy?
I do think that, especially coming from an architecture background, designers are here to solve problems, and to see problems, and to find solutions that are not just practical but beautiful as well. Everything we try to do in this office, especially our public realm projects, is about changing how people see or interact or behave in the environment. We hope that there’s a social context to it. For example the healthcare product that we did, its how to improve healthcare through one product: how to make it easier for nurses to clean an item, how to make it more safe for the patient, how to make them feel more dignified when they’re in the hospital. Everything we do we hope that the social aspect or cultural aspect is taken into account.
What advice do you have for young designers?
Go and see as much as you can, for example like what you’ve been doing seeing all the fairs in Cologne and all that. Learn as much as you can, software skills are important. When you produce a project, its not just about how pretty something is but also the thinking behind it and finding ways to communicate that I think. So when you’re putting together a portfolio, keep that in mind.
How did you get from RISD to here?
Obviously I graduated from architecture. I left Providence and moved to New York, and got a job as a lighting designer. At that time it was quite a difficult time to get a job, it was 2001 and there was a bit of a recession. I worked there for two years and also did a year in interior design, and then wanted to go back to school for industrial design. I came over here (London), and did two years of MA in Industrial Design at Central St. Martins. Upon graduating, I found it quite hard to find a job here. Luckily PL was looking for someone with interior design experience, and that’s how I came to work in this studio and I’ve been here for four years now.
Visit PearsonLloyd at www.pearsonlloyd.com
Visit London too, it’s an amazing place.
Posted by Anson Cheung | Date Posted: 32 March, 2011
