Interview with Andrea Cingoli

Andrea Cingoli ("AC") interviewed on Wednesday, 19 December.

Could you please tell us about your experience as a designer, artist, architect or creator?

AC : I'm not a pop star and I'm not a veteran with excellent skills and experience. In 10 years of activity, I have been taking care of projects for small businesses and innovative startups, working hard to make the little things extraordinary. I often think I have "taken" much more than what I have "given", because every customer or coworker was a mine of knowledge and a reason for growth.

How did you become a designer?

AC : I like to find alternative solutions and fix others' mistakes by finding new coherent frameworks for things and giving them new and unexpected meanings and usefulness. Doing design is a mission: it means improving the world and the colorful lives of the people who live in it. I have always done this and I see myself always doing this, maybe also because my parents are both architects and together we played so much by building my own games and experimenting with all the processes, from wood to welding.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

AC : I design intelligently to have smart products. I do not have a style, I adapt myself continually to the theme and the situation. What is clear is that what I design pays attention to the user experience; the form is the final, but not the secondary, expression of a process; design does not save the world, but without it we would all be sadder.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

AC : I would not like to seem blasphemous, but I think design is what makes us more like God. Only God creates and the creative act is a magical experience; seeing an idea transform into matter is extraordinary. It entertains me, makes me proud and satisfied with my commitment.

What particular aspects of your background shaped you as a designer?

AC : I love art and beauty, I love mechanism and movement. I love technologies related to the history and life of man because we are the masters of the world, because we use and build tools: from musical ones to agricultural ones or ones related to travel. I look at things, and when I look at them I disassemble them in my head and try to understand their essence so I can make treasures out of them. I observe, I understand, I learn, then I draw to remember. For me it is a game, a pastime.

What is your growth path? What are your future plans? What is your dream design project?

AC : I come from a family of architects and restoration technicians, so I have always lived art, architecture and innovative technologies. I have never seen knowledge as something compartmentalized and I think that a technician who does not chew on a little bit of philosophy is a lame horse. To run, and do it quickly, all four legs are used, then training is needed. So much training. The future is unpredictable. I live project after project thinking about solving problems and offering new solutions and new readings of the world.

What are your advices to designers who are at the beginning of their career?

AC : Talent and culture are not enough, tenacity and determination are also needed.

You are truly successful as a designer, what do you suggest to fellow designers, artists and architects?

AC : Observe and study the world around you: Nothing is ever invented, needs are translated and forms and meanings are changed.

What is your day to day look like?

AC : No day is like any other. However, everyone starts very early in order to study and do research on news and trends. Then you write: email and reports should be disposed of even before starting the day. In the end, we follow what is moving forward and the satisfactions of seeing products and projects grow arrive. All days end when the activities end. Clocks for me are beauty accessories.

How do you keep up with latest design trends? To what extent do design trends matter?

AC : I am independent more than following fashion; I prefer to be ahead of it by observing changing lifestyles and sniffing changes in the air. This does not mean not to document or not to observe the market, it's just that I prefer to stand out and not mix my design with the rest.

How do you know if a product or project is well designed? How do you define good design?

AC : There is no design that "pleases", there is a "coherent" design, a "right" one, one "close to the people". If the design has these characteristics, you can be sure that it will be "beautiful" and "successful".

How do you decide if your design is ready?

AC : Idea and product are different. The product is ready when it is definitively buildable at the best price and with flawless quality of detail. The idea is ready when the story has no gaps and everything finds a justification to fall, from the function to the poetics to the form that follows from it.

What is your biggest design work?

AC : I think it will be the next one, but I think I will always continue to respond like this. There is no better or perfect job for me, nor what makes me proud. All my designs have involved me and satisfied me. If we talk about data, the Din-Ink developed a few years ago has had an exceptional media success.

Who is your favourite designer?

AC : The design is not the teacher's legacy. I could mention many great teachers from whom I have been inspired, each one for a reason. However, among all of them, I admire the vision, the programmatic and formal synthesis of Joe Colombo and Achille Castiglioni.

Would you tell us a bit about your lifestyle and culture?

AC : I am deeply Italian. And being deeply Italian means being linked to your cultural context but at the same time having a natural predisposition to digest different cultures.

Would you tell us more about your work culture and business philosophy?

AC : 1)You know pizza? Good. It is a "sacred" dish but in the end it can be seasoned in the most different ways without losing its iconicity (still hoping to avoid the pineapple!). This adaptability that I carry within me has always been of help in the project and in the dialogue necessary for its development.I come from a family of architects / entrepreneurs and the things that were passed on to me intravenously were first the importance of people, because the important things are really done together, then the importance of the project in all its forms, from life to product . Everything was helped by a powerful infusion of positivity, because winning or losing is not important, but instead, always being able to give your best: in this case, even if you are losing, it is not possible to have negative results. This is my little more homespun way of doing business: team, knowledge, commitment.

What are your philanthropic contributions to society as a designer, artist and architect?

AC : In fact, I am the founder of a foundation that values young international artists: the "Cingoli Foundation", which also includes my wife and my parents, works to promote young contemporary artists and raise people's awareness on the topic, because I believe that a world without art is like an image without colors.

What positive experiences you had when you attend the A’ Design Award?

AC : 1)The competition is nice and so many are here to compete and on a high level. It's great to know that the audience who is observing you is wide and varied, and I think that the press office has worked very well.It's nice to know that you have so many tools and services at your fingertips in one big container. I think that I will definitively entrust so many of my other projects to your prize.

Andrea Cingoli Profile