on Design
Above: Silicone brush, sugar dispenser, chair, upside down chair, milk container and upside down storage vessel (at various scales).
Right: Shoe upper.
Atlason is a strategic innovation and industrial design studio based in New York City. We design consumer products, furniture and packaging for companies that range from startups to large multinationals.
As designers, we have always asked ourselves where our job begins and ends. There is a huge responsibility involved in designing and making new products. Design is generally conceived as a way of creating objects that make our lives more beautiful, convenient and comfortable.
However, as a society, we are grappling with the issue that pursuing this comfort comes with an environmental downside.
God, or the devil is in the details, depending on who you ask.
This is the challenge of our time: to imagine, design and motivate corporations and individuals to participate in a new way to create, deliver and access the goods we all need.
And that is also where today’s opportunity exists: to develop new types of products and businesses that will point us towards and shape a better future for everyone
We are 100% focused on helping our clients create sustainable products. This is as much of a design consideration as their comfort, safety and ergonomics.
Hlynur V. Atlason Founder & Creative Director
Designing products is a process that leaves behind artifacts, temporary in nature.
Methodology
We consistently refine our practice as we solve an ever more diverse range of design challenges.
While our approach is always tailored to the challenge at stake, there are four key components to creating any successful product or piece of furniture, or to tackling a new design question.
Cheers to sustainability. Recycling an aluminium bottle uses 90% less energy than recycling a glass bottle. Aluminum is lighter and stronger than glass and therefore safer and cheaper to transport. In addition aluminum bottles prevent all light from reaching the beer inside, keeping it colder and fresher for longer.
We establish trust with the people with whom we work in order to precisely understand their desired outcome.
We endeavor to understand what our clients need in the abstract as well as the concrete, so that we trust that we can meet these objectives. This allows our clients to trust us in return, and that the path we establish is the right one.
Every design challenge is a serious challenge. We empathize with the people we’re designing for. We respect their needs. We imagine what it is like to walk in their shoes.
At the same time, we actively listen to and consider our clients’ situation and context, which sometimes operates from within complex corporate structures.
We seek to provide the best tools to assist them navigate hurdles, and ensure that the documents we provide can be easily understood at different stages of development, and will survive formal and informal reviews.
The world never stops changing, so we never stop learning.
We study objects to understand where they came from, and how they came to be.
We monitor and anticipate shifts in society, in our own lives, and how people adapt to and accommodate change.
We learn about people, cultures and values. We sift through the moving currents of taste, tendencies and trends, and find ways to understand how people integrate products, systems and new scenarios into their everyday lives.
We seek to unwind complexity into simple thoughts that can be shared.
After the discovery and gathering phases, we mobilize our information and materials, and outline the possible ways to achieve our vision.
Typically, these include strategies for manufacturing, sustainability, marketing, design, cost, and other factors that could be described as holistic in approach.
