We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Corona about their original and creative Faucet design work. Corona is an award-winning industrial designer, that makes our world a better place with their original faucet works.
Corona ("Corona") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Aluvia Faucet. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
Corona : There were different approaches to the inspiration, from an aesthetic point of view, the main inspiration came from eroded rocks and mountains, some examples are found in the Antelope Canyon in Arizona, where water and air shaped the rocks through time to form soft and fluid silhouettes . From a functional point of view, the Aluvia Collection aims to provide inexpensive and long lasting solutions using recyclable materials and efficient processes; working along with plastic possibilities and challenging the current know-how, inspired us to come up with clever ideas for assembly and easy ways to swap the handle design.
Corona : The main purpose was to revitalize the portfolio and give a new design language to the brand in the economic faucet category, while at the same time, re think a new way of assembly to the counter top and challenge the means of production established in the industry.
Corona : It has been successfully launch in the Colombian market with great acceptance, the next steps include its introduction in the Central American market and also the design of complementary products to built a complete portfolio for the kitchen and bathroom; these products may include toilets, basins and other complements.
Corona : The project idea started in 2016, from this point we started a research process where we questioned what was already established and proposed new ways of looking at the problem given; the whole concept took around 2 years to be in production; it took particularly a long time because we wanted to radically change the way plastic faucets where sold, designed and produced, these meant big investments withing the company and some tough evaluations and convincing the management to follow our vision.
Corona : This project was commissioned, however, we did not stop with the aesthetic outcome, we saw an immense opportunity to make a greater impact from the product design perspective, gathering experts in different steps of the development to advise and compliment our vision.
Corona : The products are being produced right now and the company is already working on optimized versions to make it even better.
Corona : In the realization of this project, the whole in house design team participated in one way or another, from the research to the engineering phase, a lot of people with different backgrounds where involved and helped shape this design to be what it is now.
Corona : From the very beginning, we had a clear vision of our target customer, particularly divided in 3 groups, first we looked at the Latin American families with limited incomes, they provided great insights for what our products should promise and what added values must be complied, then we looked at architects and construction companies, they provided valuable information in terms of proportions and assembly issues, and lastly, we have the retailers, they guided us to determine a sales strategy, post sale services and gather competitors information.
Corona : The way we managed to come up with these designs through traditional materials and processes such as ABS injection molding set us apart from what is easily found in the shelves, we put a lot of effort to obtain big cases with seamless assembly lines and molding lines, enhancing the chrome finish to its best, as one could easily find in the brass counterparts, but for a fraction of the cost.
Corona : Aluvia comes from the inspiration of this design, we withdraw a great part of the formal lines from nature. In this case, we looked for the effect of alluvial erosion in nature, the effects of water and air through time, which also resembles in a way, the origins of the project - revitalize the plastic faucet portfolio -; being time, a key player in the erosion process and the justification for this development.
Corona : We based the first stages in different tools from the design thinking process, they work best when the real nature of a problem needs to be find and define. From then on, we used a lot of hand and digital sketching for the styling and countless hours of 3D work in CREO and Keyshot to find the right balance between aesthetics and functionality.
Corona : During the realization of the collection, we worked along with specialized engineers in the plastic injection field, a very talented team in house and a Spanish company helped us give the final shape for every product, we build piece by piece with them so the design intention was the dominant and challenging side of the development, always putting up front what we wanted to achieve and work around that to accomplish it.
Corona : Technology was the enabler of the great idea behind the whole concept, without the knowledge and experience of engineers, none of this could have been possible.
Corona : A few challenges came up during the process, but perhaps the most important came when looking at the international standards we should comply with; this put a lot of pressure on the team because we had to make every product accessible for maintenance and easy replaceable parts inside; here, some concepts of big continuous cases had to be re-think and worked a few times before coming up with a final solution.
Corona : After seeing the first injected pieces and prototype assemblies, we saw the great potential of the design, being such a unique product made in plastic gave us the idea that things like these are not very common everywhere. We decided to put our innovation into a greater challenge and the international design competition was a perfect place to test out if what we were doing was up to the highest standards.
