András Kerékgyártó wasn't the first Hungarian designer whose work we saw, that would have been Marcel Breuer, but András is, arguably, that active Hungarian designer who has featured most often in these dispatches.
A position achieved not on account of any formal legal agreement, just to clarify, but simply because he invariably produces good, interesting work worthy of discussion and a wider public.
Work such as the Bold collection for Taiwanese brand Brave Home as seen at Magyar Design 2024.
A project that arose via an irregularly travelled, if also thoroughly direct, route: during his Masters studies at the Aalto University of Art and Design, András shared a flat in Helsinki with some of those now behind Brave Home. A fortuitous home, if one so will.
A fortuitous home, a once shared home, a long standing private connection, which didn't automatically mean that András could deliver that which was required. But a joint time in Helsinki which gave Brave Home contact with a designer who could deliver that which was required, specifically a family of desk organisers
Whereby that is far too simple a description for that which András has developed.
On the one hand Bold is a family of silicone desk organisers. A material that for all it, currently, is not that familiar in terms of office tools brings with it several advantages, including its silence when moved or used, a not unimportant consideration in a contemporary home office or open-plan office office space, and also, and this probably isn't, wasn't, part of what András and Brave Home were thinking, but a good product doesn't exist as the designer intended but as the user requires, the flexibility of silicone means you can fidget with it, which can be advantageous in helping you focus your thoughts, formulate that email, tread water till lunch, etc. And also underscores that silicone is a very tactile material, and also visually more engaging, and more animated and vital than inert, unresponsive, flat, hard plastics. In addition silicone is less fragile than the hard plastics normally used for desk organisers which means that breakages during transportation, a major problem with all thin-walled hard plastic objects, are all but excluded, which not only helps keeps the costs down, but also means fewer have to be produced than would be the case with conventional hard plastics where the breakages would need to be replaced, and which is an important environmental factor. And also means that the objects of the Bold collection won't break when your cat or wombat or partner or whomever knocks them of your desk. Which is an important factor in terms of the maintenance of domestic harmony.
On the other hand that which appears, in context of the taller organisers, to be a purely decorative crimping at the top isn't only decoration, it's also functional: not only creating as it does pen and pencil sized alcoves into which pens and pencils very naturally fall and sit, erect and ready to be used, but as a 3D crimp means pens and pencils can be safely, securely, conveniently, placed across the top, stored if one so will: thus, if, for example, you are using more than one pen/pencil for a particular task the one(s) not in use can be effortlessly kept at the ready, or if you're only using one but need to put it down regularly, it's always there at hand. Safe, secure, convenient. Which is a very nice bit of thinking things through from András. As one would expect.
And on the rare and all the more valuable third hand, the Bold collection allows informative insights into András's approach, that way, as he once explained to us, he seeks an honesty in an object, that an object "should look like what it is, and in terms of the structure there shouldn’t be any superfluous elements", and that and an object should "find it’s own shape". Which they all do. You look at them, you know what they are, what they offer and begin, in cooperation with the objects, to plan them into your routines and lives. And that despite being, essentially, nothing more complicated than an exercise in folding. If a simple piece of folding that then needed to be translated to the complexities of industrial production, that thing that makes design such a difficult profession, service. But which András has resolved very satisfyingly.
As anyone who has even been in the smow Blog office can testify to, desk organisers aren't the sort of object that we concern ourselves with that much, primarily because a prerequisite for employing a desk organiser is that the surface of your desk is visible and isn't a landscape of interlinked piles of papers, books, external hard drives, crumpled up post-it notes, empty pill blister packs, toothbrushes, et al....... ¿why is there a toothbrush on our desk???? But for the greater majority of sensible, tidy, people organisers are helpful on a desk. And not just on a desk, throughout the house and office there are untold locations where a colourful, intelligently designed, pleasingly formed, unbreakable, communicative organising aid is useful. Desirable.
And not only are desk organisers not our thing. They aren't András's thing. As a designer we mean, we imagine they are very much his thing as objects, certainly to judge from the considerations inherent in the Bold series. Or rather weren't his thing as a designer, his thing was very much furniture. However, with the Bold collection he has neatly demonstrated, as he did with the Cnidaria vase and lamp presented at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023, his first foray into glass which produced very pleasing, charming, engaging objects that pushed, drew, glass beyond that which it is and can be, and that not least because of how András approaches projects....... with the Bold collection he has neatly demonstrated the adaptability, responsiveness, universality, of his approach and positions, neatly demonstrated that his competences in furniture design are transferable to wider product design. Or put another way, Bold is a collection that should embolden András not only to move further beyond furniture, but also in his furniture design work.
Although presented as part of Magyar Design 2024, where they sat very easily and naturally with and on Polc íróasztallal by Woodoo, as would Cnidaria, the Bold collection hasn't been formally launched yet. But that day is approaching. And when it is the collection will be available in seven colours, and, we all hope, be expanded from the seven models presented in Budapest to include a re-imagining by András of the classic tool box. A re-imagining that promises not only to be just as responsive, active and understated as the rest of the collection, but a visual delight. A re-imagining of the classic tool box that can be seen on the Brave Home website; but a re-imagining which needs a couple more tweaks before it can exist as an actual object. As so oft in product design the final steps from design to product prove the trickiest. As noted above, for all the simple ease of so many products, design is a difficult business. But we're confident András, Brave Home and their technical specialists will get there. As they have gotten there in a very satisfying and pleasing and practical and meaningful manner with the other components of the Bold collection.
Further information on the Bold collection can be found at www.bravehome.co
And further information on András Kerékgyártó can be found at https://andraskerekgyarto.design
