interview :: visibility - confessions of a design geek

This article was published 10 years

Visibility is a New York based industrial design studio, founded by Joseph Guerra and Sina Sohrab in 2012. I met the design duo at Ambiente Frankfurt at the beginning of last year where their work had been selected as part of the Ambiente Talents showcase of new designers. I finally managed to grab two minutes with Joseph to find out more about what makes them tick. We talked about the importance of reading, talking, drawing and learning…

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

I hope to never stop learning.

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a farmer or an inventor.

And now?!

To design objects that resonate with people.

How did you first get into what you do now?

I studied furniture design at the Rhode Island School of Design. Sina, my partner, is the one who actually convinced me to try this in the first place. My studies there introduced me to three-dimensional thinking and I fell in love with drawing things that later became tangible and usable objects.

What inspires your designs?

Inspiration is relative. We try to distill products down to what they want to be, and then figure out what we can bring to the conversation.

How do you overcome creative block?

We read, and we talk. Discussion is our best way to work through most bumps in the road. Some of our better ideas have come about through dialogue rather than a sketch.

Talk me through your design and making process from initial idea to final product.

Our design process varies depending on the end goal. At times a company will come to us with a prompt and we use that as a starting point to begin. In these cases, we have discussions about their capabilities and requirements early on. Other times the process is much more fluid; one of us comes in with an idea and we discuss it and draw it, and begin to develop a concept. From there we follow the project. But our typical process involves starting with an idea, and developing it through sketching and modelling.

What’s your favourite part of the process?

We love making models – they often have a beauty of their own.

What’s your favourite tool?

The router is a great tool, you can make all kinds of things with such a simple and powerful machine.

Describe a really good day and a really bad day in the life of Visibility.

A good day is seeing a project take a turn we hadn’t expected; a bad day is when that turn is in a direction we hadn’t desired.

What are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of our ability to draw and work on paper, but also that we could fabricate most of the things we design ourselves in a standard shop. Our education gave us a great training in how to make things the right way, now we always look at a project and try to approach it with this in mind; how will this be made? Is there a better way?

What advice would you give to a new designer?

Read.

What did it mean to you to be selected for Ambiente Talents?

It felt great to be included in such an international event, we want to try to show work overseas more often. It was also a pleasure to see so many skilled fellow designers with different visions and ambitions.