Interview iiks to Oliver Kleine, of the design team at German glass company Leonardo, about how it's important

to look beyond glass as a material, and beyond pure functionality, at a more aesthetic concept o f ' ifestyle'

ne art o fascination
he biggest compliment a customer could pay me would be to say our products were 'fascinating'," says Oliver Kleine. "And then to buy it?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. "If someone finds a product fascinating, they will buy it." It's finding the way to be fascinating that is Kleine's biggest challenge. First off, he says, he's not selling glass, he's selling a lifestyle, glass being not simply a product but also an expression of ideas about modern living. But where do the ideas for this 'lifestyle' come from? "We start planning a year before, looking at what colours and shapes are going to be 'in' and what's lacking from our range. When we travel the world, when we go to the cinema, when we read magazines, when we see textile fashion, we are always looking at colour, shape and material. Then we have brainstorming meetings to discuss the new ideas.

"For instance, we always need outdoor products so we think about what theme to have for these next year and look at what techniques we have available - we might consider textile fashion and think about how this can translate into 30. "We believe that form follows inspiration. A product has to be functional, of course - it must 'work'. But it has to be 'emotional' too this means that even if an idea seems silly, we will think about it, and whether it can be made functional." Is there such a thing as a new idea? Yes and no, says Kleine. He concedes that basic, tried-and-tested ideas change their core aspects little over time, citing the Mini car, which despite new colours, improvements to technology and subtle changes in shape, remains recognisably a Mini. Glass is much the same, he says. The recycling of old design

themes (such as the recently-popular Retro style) can add to the feeling of'seen it before'. But even Retro can be modernised, he says, by applying familiar design themes to a modern shape. And technology allows changes in terms of materials, textures and shape that keep the look fresh. "What you could see yesterday you can feel today, and maybe even smell tomorrow. It's important to involve all the senses." In marketing products with this sensuousness in mind, says Kleine, Leonardo has its competition not in other glass manufacturers but in very different consumer goods such as mobile phones, DVDs and trendy clothes. And in lifestyle retailers who sell glass. "Our biggest problem is that people have so many ways to spend their money. I can lose a customer because he decides to make a short trip instead of buying something for the

Interview

home (you can fly today for 39 from Germany to London). Our goal is to make people as fashion-conscious about glass as they are about, say, trainers. Puma customers want this year's model and that's how it should be with glass." With a target consumer aged 20-40 it's especially vital, says Kleine, to get across the message that a glass object is more desirable more fascinating - than a mobile phone. The target age makes it vital to involve young people in market research such as focus groups. "Young people are quick to criticise a product. They want to know what the benefits are for them. They won't tell their friends 'look, this was a cheap vase, I got it for a few euro', they will tell them 'look at this cool vase'." But the target age is more an idea about attitude than physical age, says Kleine. "Everyone wants to be young. We make products a young-thinking older person can use. When a /o-year-old or a seven-year-old likes one of our products, I'm very happy." Marketing, says Kleine, is about story-telling. "A product is not interesting because it's glass; it's interesting because of the atmosphere and the story it creates." For this reason, while primarily a glass supplier, Leonardo also considers other media, such as rubber bases, plastic trays and items made out of fibreglass - still technically glass but with a very different look and feel. Kleine says: "We keep our eyes open to new ideas - techniques, styles, decorations, colours - because we can do so much more than just normal glass - like tumblers, tablelights or vases. Glass can be a high-tech material and we are on the way to discover it! But any new medium has to 'fit' with the glass range. Some items cannot be made of glass for instance, napkins-but if there's something we can make of glass, we will. We work close-

ly with scientists to find out what more we can do with it technically." Despite the 'arty' approach to design, Kleine says it's vital to bear commercial considerations in mind. Pricing is an important part of this: "Our prices have always been in a good price/quality relation because we want to target young people, to get them to associate us with fashion, today we have an appropriate mix of prices. There are products that you can't get anywhere else, such as the LED-lamps, so we can keep prices at a certain level. But there is scope to make attractive-priced items, the basics." Quality is also important. "Inspiration, quality and emotion are the most important things, but we always take care over quality because ultimately design is a business - the products must be commercial." It is for this reason that the 'dynamic' designers - three inhouse and up to 15 freelance - are not simply asked to design 'something for the table'. Kleine says: "There's a lot of pressure in bringing out new products and getting them to shows and shops on time, so designers have to know the theme, the target consumer, the colour, the medium, and major aspects of its purpose like whether it needs to be modular." Price targets are also planned at an early stage. "But within those parameters the designers have a lot of scope." Kleine believes the relationship between design and sales is a vital mix. "Everything we

It's only when two of these ashtrays are placed together that the reason for the name Yin Yang becomes clear

do has to have context. A designer should have product knowledge and an understanding about quantities, and a salesperson should have a feeling for trends and be able to tell the 'story' behind the product, just talking about price is not a conversation a salesperson should have with customers. Seen in isolation, a glass is a glass -it's something you don't really need. You only think you need the product if you like the combination of good designed product and the story behind it." Though Leonardo has a great deal of clear glass, what really catches the eye is its coloured glass. So where do the latest season's colours come from? The company, in common with most other big suppliers, employs colour agencies and trend scouts, who predict colours several years ahead. This begs the question of whether suppliers are too 'led' by outsiders' opinions of what will constitute fashion. "That's a risk we have to take," says Kleine. But there is a huge range of colours each season and of those, we choose the ones we are going to use, the ones that will

fit into our existing colour assortment. We also do our own trend predictions, but our vision for interior design is not avant-garde or futuristic-it's of today. "Haute couture will always lead the way in trends in household products because it's a status symbol, a small market with huge budgets - if we tried to emulate that, we would be so avant-garde we would sell only 10 of everything. For example, in the 19905, we were making blue glass but it wasn't until customers saw it in interior magazines that they started ordering it. So we don't want to be too ahead of trends. We need to position ourselves at the edge between avant-garde and mainstream." This approach to design was well illustrated at the Tendence show in Frankfurt in August 2003, where the stand presentation was referred to as a 'culture cruise' and a 'voyage of discovery', presenting products as a visual and sensual experience, including the tactile feel of leather and textiles, and visual impressions created by lights that changed colour. Globalisation, says Kleine, no longer means uniformity but national characteristics. "We are turning away from excessive balance, consensus and placidity." So the culture cruise featured themes from Canada, Scandinavia, India and Asia. A growing use of handmade glass is part of this trend, with lack of uniformity now seen as characterful instead of being a flaw. One of the seven sections at the show included 'the store', which aimed to show how

The Sparkling range of bowls and vases tie in with the nordic design trend of the last few years

products can look at retail, an area that Leonardo is skilled in, with its own five stores and 50 franchises. Another section was the 'light bulb', a dome housing the ao-strong lamp range. This is an area in which Leonardo claims to be well ahead of its rivals - the lamps, lit from within by a choice of any of 25 alternating colours, are in line for some real innovation, as Kleine explains: "In future, consumers will be able to download millions of colours for their lamps from the internet. We

want to be at the forefront of this kind of 'intelligent' product development because it will enable us to sell at a higher price level, to sell to design-conscious outlets like trendy hotels and to become known as a designer label."