Interview with Christian Kroepfl

Christian Kroepfl ("CK") interviewed on Thursday, 22 March.

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

CK : I've been working as an architect for more than 20 years for different companies now, designing furniture always was part of these projects. I designed whole town districts as well as doorknobs. Looking back actually, it was logical that someday I would design furniture series.

How did you become a designer?

CK : I was able to make beautiful drawings at an early age. I was drawing a lot together with friends. I remember us sitting at a friend's house, his father had many huge old electrical plans and we used the backs of these plans for our drawings. Also I was interested in art and design already as a young boy. Sometimes I skipped school with a friend to visit exhibitions in Zurich or Basel - I grew up in Austria near the Swiss border. Becoming a furniture designer happened coincidentally, I worked on an architectural project and I was asked to design a series of tables. Three months later we presented them on the Vienna Furniture Fair...

What are your priorities, technique and style when designing?

CK : I always start with pen and paper. These two and imagination are the most useful aspects of any design - the rest is nice to have. Sometimes I make models. In the second step I use the computer for 2D drawings to check my thoughts, then I check again with paper and pen. Drawings in 3D I use in the next step. If you start too early with 3D, it's very dangerous. Your brain must design the project and it's easy to be deceived as a designer by nice forms in 3D. Never forget the sections at this point!

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

CK : I like the outdoors, hiking, skiing, camping, travelling... When I was a boy scout, the most useful thing I learned is to need as less as necessary and enough as possible.

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

CK : At the moment I’m working on a sofa and children furniture. The current project(s) always is/are the most beautiful and enjoyable one(s).

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

CK : Never work for free! Remember, you are well educated professionals and those guys who want your work for free get a lot of money for cheating you.

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

CK : see point 7

What is your day to day look like?

CK : I don’t have a daily routine. Every day is different, although I wish I had more time to develop.

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

CK : I don't follow trends intentionally, it really happens. But sometimes I get an assignment by a client who follows these trends.

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

CK : A good desing fulfills the purpose for which it was made.

How do you decide if your design is ready?

CK : A design is never ready from my point of view, you can always optimize it. But there is a certain point, and you feel, that it is impossible to really make it better reasonably or you feel that it's getting worse. Then stop or go back, rethink! Maybe it's really finished?

What is your biggest design work?

CK : Every work is unique in it's way. My favourite design is the table KT8. It's so simple and simultaneously elegant.

Who is your favourite designer?

CK : Bo Hilleberg

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

CK : Emotional but true. Well, I'm still a boy-scout, I guess: "Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best." Robert Baden-Powell

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

CK : Well, I love working. There is nothing worse than inactivity.

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

CK : see point 15

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

CK : Honestly, I must determine that many design competitions are outrageously expensive. I used to say, that if I were born again, I would start a religion or a design competition. But I think that you guys are really interested in design, you want to bring something further and you really try to support the designers. Chapeau!

Christian Kroepfl Profile