studio for product design, Stuttgart / Baden-Württemberg

 

The founding duo Andreas Haug and Tom Schönherr, former colleagues at Frogdesign, do not aim to impose their own expressive signature on their clients. They are interested instead in task-specific solutions oriented on the desired target group. Their brand of high-end minimalism with undeniable reverberations of classical Modernism results in sophisticated, cosmopolitan products. Whether mobile phone, stereo system or faucet, all of their designs are first submitted in prototype form to not only be seen but touched, a service that makes it that much easier for clients to articulate concrete requests. This intensive dialogue frequently gives rise to innovative products and unusually longstanding working relationships, such as with bathroom fittings manufacturer Hansgrohe. Creating a strong brand profile is not something that can be done overnight. It comes about as a process in which the manufacturer and designer must work hand-in-hand. Loewe, a company with a highly developed design culture, was one of those to take this route – which is often a meandering one. Over the space of an entire decade, various design features were worked out that guarantee a high recognition factor but which are far more than skin-deep. What resulted was a variety of different Loewe television sets that all have one thing in common: The Phoenix team namely crystallized the upscale brand into a single central hallmark. A control button placed squarely in the middle of the lower edge of each television set identifies the set as unmistakably Loewe. Homogeneity and individuality don’t have to be contradictions: For Lamy, Phoenix developed an exclusive open series called Accent in which the grips can be switched according to taste and preferred pen-holding position.