interview :: siv lier

This article was published 10 years

I first saw Bergen Academy of Art graduate Siv Lier‘s work in Milan last year, and then again at 100{ff546b69e23b1524d799f96c6ba7a638e1f677053b0a2a1568b05315fd5f8fc7} Norway in September. I was struck by her intuitive use of colour and form – her work often combines simple geometric shapes to make functional yet playful products that encourage user interaction. We talked big hairy audacious goals, the importance of making mistakes, and how cycling to work starts the day off on the right note…

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

I am a Norwegian designer working and living on the west coast city of Bergen where I have my own design studio. I design functional objects that are friendly, long lasting, attractive, surprising and a bit strange. My big hairy audacious goal is to contribute to making the world a better place through design.

What inspires your work?

Inspiration comes in unexpected ways; a strange painting, a surprising movie, touching a surface. Talking to people, visiting workshops and getting a glimpse behind the scenes of how something is made all spark my creativity. Running or hiking alone in the mountains surrounding my hometown is also important for my creative work – I think it is the physical focus that relieves the brain from thinking so hard, so it can relax more, that makes the good ideas pop up and everything suddenly seem so easy.

Talk me through your design and making process.

My design process is quite physical; I do sketches by hand, make mock-ups and full-scale models in cardboard, wood, etc. testing size, proportions and functionality. My studio includes a workshop and this allows me to quickly take an idea from sketch to a physical 3D model. Working like this has a huge impact on my work and I discover so much in the process – often ‘mistakes’ that happen along the way lead to interesting twists in the project.

I always want to find the essence of the project I’m working on and I often start with a specific phenomenon or situation. My style is minimalist, with a dose of humour and some sort of interaction, for example in my Total Eclipse lamp the light is dimmed by displacing the position of the ‘moon’ in front of the ‘sun’. In my No Worries bed-side shelf, you can put your worries away for the night and sleep tight.

Other projects are more formal with a focus on material and form, like the Geometri shelf and the Spring trays; in which I play with contrasts between different materials, colours and geometric shapes.

The making process is usually a mixture of things I can do myself in my studio and things I need others to do for me, for example the cutting and bending of brass in the Spring trays. I love talking to people that have skills I don’t have, always learning something new when I create a product.

What’s your favourite part of the process?

Once I have decided on the concept for a product and start to elaborate it – for example, for the Spring trays I decided I wanted to create a container and display for everyday objects, and I had a fantastic time testing out shapes, sizes, finding out what materials to use etc. Getting my hands dirty engaging in a project to see where it goes is the best. I love to materialise a concept, to see how the initial sketch eventually ends up in an object you can touch, feel and use.

What’s your favourite tool and why?

The Stanley knife is one of my favourite tools. Since I work a lot with mock-up models using cardboard, I use it all the time.

Tell me about a really good day and a really bad day in the life of Siv Lier.

A good day: Coffee and breakfast with my family before cycling to my studio where I work on a prototype or mock-up due for an exhibition. I listen to loud music and feel full of energy and confidence and this all allows me to absorb the project whilst losing track of time and space. After work I meet friends for a picnic in the sunny park. Ahhh!

A bad day: I wake up tired, start the day arguing with my daughters before going to my studio to do paperwork. I think about all the things I should have done and give myself a hard time for not being better at business, economy, strategy etc. and end up procrastinating instead of getting the tasks done. I go home with a bad feeling of being a very unsuccessful designer. Grrr!

What defines good design?

Good design is functional, attractive, simple, surprising and long-lasting.