Interview with Tamas Csiszer

Tamas Csiszer ("TC") interviewed on Monday, 26 March.

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

TC : I started my career in interior design by rethinking optical stores at around the turn of the millenium. I beleive in innovative solutions and it is within this field that I found common ground with companies such as Essilor, Zeiss and Kodak. Later on besides optical stores, restaurants hotels and dozen of companies of different profiles have been realized.

How did you become a designer?

TC : Creativity and artistic orientation have spanned generations in my family. My incentive to design is not accidental, composers and painters can be found among my ancestors.

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

TC : Function, harmony and ambience are the top three aspects of my design process. I work primarily for retail stores, so I produce designs and plans for installation and constraction if it is needed. I prepare hand drawings and sketches when I start to design trying to assimilate to the ambience of the space intended for transformation. After discussing about the plan with my colleagues the digital tools and renderings are always integrated in all of our projects to create three-dimensional visualizations.

Which emotions do you feel when designing?

TC : I feel humility in the initial phase of designing a retail store. My main goal is to meet and exceed my clients demand and of those who has intention to come in that store in the future. I am constantly balancing my design decisions and my clients desires, or what is the first, the design or the function. It is important to remember that it is up to the clients to decide what style suits them best. I try to be not so extremist. I like the whole process of working with my clients and colleagues to achieve the perfect final product.

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

TC : I am empathetic with people. They can rely on me as a human being as well. Meeting more people sharpens my sense more to feel what the client wants. I think apart from a strong technical expertise, the ability to communicate with people and understanding their feelings contribute to the success. Emotional intelligence is a necessary part of our works. A good communication skill including negotiation skills are also necessary for the contact and effective cooperation with general building contractors.

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

TC : As my career path prooves, not every interior designer needs to have an accredited education. But there are some essential qualities for interior designers such as artistic ability and creativity. For the creative young designers the limit is the sky but some technical skills such as being precise in measuring spaces and creating drawings to workers and engineers are also essential. Learning about local laws, building codes, electricity and load-bearing walls is required. Young designers does not have enough depth on particular knowledge. Work experience make possible to put into practice what they have learned. On the other hand I would like to add that the young designers can make the breaktrough and create masterpieces.

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

TC : I suggest to fellow designers and encourage them to create a design that refers to their own original idea and to resist on influence of others as much as possible.

What is your day to day look like?

TC : I prefer to start my workday at 6 o'clock. I give a strong start to my days in order to avoid annoying disturbance. At daytime I am busy with phone calls, surveying locations and my work requires communication and cooperation with my partners and colleagues. For instance, during the day I can not choose appropriate time for creating drawings, rethinking challanges. Spending late afternoon and night time with my family is the convenient way to take part in my childrens life entirely, in other words, to spend quality time with my family.

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

TC : The influence of mass media is inevitable. I like to improve myself by new technical inventions and furniture novelties, fashion trends. I keep up with latest design trends by contacting distributors, attending show trades, collecting catalogues. I beleive I am open minded, I like to involve new things in designing. But I don't let the latest trends to hamper my decision making. I do not support any particular trend. The fashion trend represents just only 20 % of the design. The main part of the design consist of finding the mood of the interior and the way to express it.

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

TC : Regarding the initial phase of my works I like to be inspired by the emotional impact of an interior. It means I like to feel its soul. We can talk about a long- established or a newly formed interior, the important is that a good design should make an impression on me. I consider as a mistake when people think that just following the latest design is enough to give character to a place.

What is your biggest design work?

TC : My favourite work is always the current project. But one of my earlier design the eyewear store Optika di Moda is still close to my heart. The retail space is in a listed building of a historic district. I wanted to make entering people touched by the historical feeling. My aim was to create a space combining the original 19th century features with the new in an elegant way. Even with this project I haven't gain any trophy I consider it as one of the biggest challenge in my life.

Who is your favourite designer?

TC : Arne Jacobsen who is famous for his sense of proportion. Charles and Ray Eames are noted for the bent plywood designs. Jonathan Ive provides minimalist design by using simple forms taking from nature. I like Trussardi as well who combine elegance, sophistication with comfort.

Tamas Csiszer Profile