interview :: dan hoolahan - confessions of a design geek

This article was published 11 years

This is the second in my series of interviews with young designers identified by the Design Council as “Ones to Watch.” Dan Hoolahan‘s Freeform furniture range was listed in the Everyday Living category alongside 2014 Design Museum Designer in Residence Torsten Sherwood and silversmith Juliette Bigley whose work I first spotted at Clerkenwell Design Week this time last year. Freeform is a modular furniture collection which uses screw threads cut into the wood to enable quick and easy construction with no tools and the ability to create varying forms providing seating, tables or shelving.

What’s the most important thing to know about you?

I love being creative and don’t feel tied to any particular subject area. One day I’ll be working on furniture, the next I might be designing the menu for a restaurant. I’m also working with a museum to put on an exhibition. Maybe eventually I’ll have more of a direction, but at the moment I’m enjoying the range of projects. But it does make it difficult to answer when someone asks what I do!

What inspires your work?

Depending on the project, my work could be inspired by experimenting with a material or process. Often I’ll observe people’s behaviours or living habits and I’m always thinking about how things work and if they could do it better or differently.

Talk me through your design and making process.

I’ll usually begin a project by researching very broadly the subject area to try to quickly understand as best as I can who will be using the particular design and how it fits into their lives. Then it’s on to sketching and model making. If there’s a material or process that’s leading the project I’ll be playing with that early on. Then it might be on to prototyping. That can go on for some time! But if it’s a one-off piece sometimes there’s a need to go straight into the making.

What’s your favourite part of the process?

My favourite part of the process is generating ideas. I love sketching and making quick models out of foam or card and it’s incredibly exciting to think of all the directions a project might go in.

What’s your favourite tool and why?

I consider myself more of a designer than a maker, and as my favourite part of the process is generating ideas, I’d have to say a pen is my favourite tool.

Tell me about a really good day and a really bad day in the life of Dan Hoolahan.

The worst days are when something goes wrong with a piece of work. It leads to the decision: start again and redo all the hard work, or try to work with it and not be totally happy with the outcome. It’s so disheartening when it happens. A good day could be solving a problem I’ve been stuck on. Finding a better way of doing something or learning something new. Topped off with receiving an email or phone call that leads to an exciting opportunity.

What defines good design?

Good design meets a need, it has a benefit to someone’s life, is easy to understand, and comfortable to use.

What are you most proud of?

I’m most proud that I’ve stuck with what I’m doing. It’s been hard work and physically tough at times, but I love what I do and find it incredibly rewarding with lots of victory moments along the way. I’m glad I committed when I had the chance and didn’t go for a job I wouldn’t be particularly interested in.

What advice would you give to an aspiring designer?

It’s important not to be afraid to put your work out there. Go for it and see what happens, make mistakes and learn from them. Also, there seems to be this perception that creative people and business people are completely separate. I would advise people that this isn’t true and that creativity plays a huge part in business.

What did it mean to you to be selected as one of the Design Council’s Ones To Watch?

I feel unbelievably honoured to have been selected as One to Watch. It was completely unexpected and has been a massive boost to my career and motivation. Looks like I have a lot to live up to now!

And finally, what’s your favourite colour?

That’s actually quite a difficult question. I’ve never done a project where colour has been particularly influential. But I wear a lot of dark red, maybe maroon, so I’ll go with that.