We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Marko Stanojevic about their original and creative Tableware design work. Marko Stanojevic is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original tableware works.
Marko Stanojevic ("MS") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Restless Chopsticks Tableware. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
MS : Finding an opportunity for design to truly contribute to something so ubiquitous, long-lasting, simple and refined. It was a serious challenge requiring sniper-like precision in decision making.
MS : To contribute, innovate and make a contemporary pair of chopsticks, while remaining traditional at the same time, or at least undeniably linked to tradition. It sounds like an oxymoron, but in design two and two do not always give four.
MS : To go into production.
MS : Several months. Initial idea was reached relatively quickly, but it took many prototypes to polish it up to its final stage.
MS : It was a self-initiated project done as a segment of another commissioned one.
MS : I am hoping to lease/sell the production rights at this point.
MS : I live in Hong Kong SAR for many years and use chopsticks daily, but coming from different culture I still do not take them for granted. I was curious if I can elevate them. So I did.
MS : I did not really have a role model on this one. There was highly supportive design team around me though who helped a lot, sometimes just by being there other times with more. If I may I would like to thank Marko Maciev, Peggy Chang, Iris Tam and Bojan Spasojevic.
MS : Anyone who responds and relates to Massclusivity trend. They are not made to be a cheap mass product being out of titanium, but I am hoping for a retail price that will still be widely acceptable. It's clear this design would be most welcomed at the East Asian market. Still, I feel Restless Chopsticks, especially being a design item, could be interesting well beyond that region.
MS : I f there are any similar concepts I am not aware of them.
MS : The aim of this project was to eliminate chopstick rest, hence the name Restless. It's a play on words, actually going back full circle to original western name for the utensil "chop-chop", a slang for busy and fast.
MS : Software: Rhinoceros, Blender, Photoshop, CorelDraw and for prototypes various 3D printing machines.
MS : The pulse element - it is a key functional, aesthetical and narrative feature all at once and an absolute focal point of the product.
MS : Technology did not play a major role on this project. Perhaps I would say the ability to 3D print in titanium a low-fidelity prototype that is fully usable for functionality testing did help make decisions with more confidence and speed.
MS : Other then researching what is available on the market, we did regular user testing.
MS : Some technical challenges popped up along the way, but nothing major.
MS : I believed it is a fully manufacturable project the market would welcome. I thought it might be award-worthy after making first prototypes. I am very glad and proud this was indeed so.
MS : I got to know about something not so obvious to me - a very large number of people in Asia actually holds and uses the chopsticks incorrectly. This had to influence the design decisions, naturally. I also learned new things about manufacturing titanium products.
MS : Questions were quite thorough, thank you.
