I met Alex after he took part in the Design Museum‘s ‘Pecha Kucha X Wim Crouwel’ event and was fascinated by his unusual approach to the design process. I couldn’t wait to talk to him afterwards and find out more…
What’s the most important thing to know about you?
Not sure; maybe my name, so you can say hello!
You often create platforms so members of the public can complete your designs – how did this idea come about? How do you feel about the loss of control this involves?
Loosing control is not easy, and often it is a bit scary. But I like it! It is a great way to get a much more interesting result than expected. It is not an easy position to arrive at, as it also means that sometimes things can go wrong and you are still responsible for them, but most of the time the results are far more interesting and creative than expected. I guess the trick is to find the right balance between the parameters that you set, and the space allowed for improvisation.
The reason I started to do this is from a sentence my mum told me once, which I really like and think is very, very important; “the importance is not in what you say, but in what others understand”. It sounds very simple and not much, but when you think about it and try to apply it on a larger scale, you realise how things in this world could go a bit better if more people were trying to apply it.
But on a simple scale as a designer, it made me realise that you can apply all these beautiful rules that you learned about design, but they might not make sense depending on the context you use them in. So an easy (and I call it lazy as well) way to do so is to let your audience be part of the experience and to include them into the equation. This will help make them understand the spoken language, since you are using their language and not yours.
What’s the appeal of using someone else’s handwriting instead of your own or a typeface?
Again, it’s about speaking the other person’s language.
Who or what are your biggest influences?
My friends, food, stupidity, laziness, words.
Where does the obsession with bread come from?!
Ah ah! It comes from a few places. The first one is the French word ‘copain’ which means ‘friend’. The origin of the word (in Latin) is made of two parts: ‘co’ (with) and pain (bread). So a friend is someone you share bread with. This, for me, is the basic level of communication. I like the idea of designing for friends, and keeping this basic level of communication.
The other interesting idea is what the bread is made of. I like the fact that, say in Europe, all the breads are different (English bread, French bread or German bread for example) but they all are made with the same ingredients. So if you compare bread to a design product, all the products are made with the same elements, but the result is different in each country. So I am interested in the idea of the local influence, the historical and geographical influences on a product that is originally the same.
I also like to compare it to the alphabet. Again, if you take English, Spanish or German, we all use the same alphabet, but we speak different languages. So, again, starting with the same ingredients, the results are different.
I sometimes use an image of a pretzel to explain my ideas and interests, as it has three parts: Bread, Paper, Communication.
Again, I compare bread and paper. I am a graphic designer and my dream is to design books. And for me, paper and bread are very similar in many ways. I see both as medium for communication. In the same way you add butter or jam or cheese onto your bread, you add ink or varnish onto paper. Both can be very cheap (toilet paper, white sliced square bread) or very expensive (six-colour print onto thick card with varnish etc., or posh French bread in London), and we use both in our daily life without really thinking about them. So I like their ‘practical’ value as well as their ‘communication’ skills!
Don’t worry if this doesn’t make any sense to you, I understand!
What are you most proud of?
That you asked to interview me!
What makes a great designer?
No idea! I guess I am not the best person to ask… best to ask the audience, visitors, clients etc
Desert island design: which three items could you not live without?
A good bottle of wine, a hat and a good music player (add ‘designed by a friend’ after each object).
What advice would you give to an aspiring designer?
Learn something else other than design, and then apply it to communication. The best designers I know originally trained as something else and then started to do design.
But more generally, I think it is important to design for others, not for yourself, and also to try to avoid redesigning things that have been designed thousands of times already. Think twice before designing another chair.
And finally, what’s your favourite colour?!
Yellow, like the sun; a happy colour.
This is one of eighteen conversations with designers that appear in my book; Interviews. If you haven’t already bought a copy, get yours here.
Further reading for the especially geeky:
- http://designmuseum.org/design/page78530
- out and about :: wim crouwel in conversation
- http://designmarketo.com/designers/alexandre-bettler/
- http://whitetriangle.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/aalexs-bread-friend-map-in-rcas-gradual-event-for-ldf-07/
