Most gadgets are temporary things, offering a dry functionality that always anticipates change, but never quite goes anywhere.
Non·object is an idea — a "design fiction" — that presents a story at odds with the dominant narrative in industrial design. This story is simple enough: that it's possible to develop and license products that will be treasured not because of their specifications, but because they make the owner happy to own it.
The work of Serbian designer Branko Lukic, Suncica Lukic, Steve Takayama and Steve Vassallo, non·object is also a forthcoming dead-tree book (appropriately enough) aimed at bringing the point home about the need for more creative, more permanent personal technology. And, finally, non·object is a business, with every intent to make the dream a commercial reality.
Branko, formerly a lead industrial designer at frogdesign and IDEO, won his first design contract as a teen-ager in Belgrade, and has since worked for clients as varied as Nike, Intel, Pepi, Starbucks and Ford. I asked him a few questions about his work. His replies follow.
*Q: Tell me a little about how you came to be interested in the nonobject design project. *
branko Lukic: Since the very beginning i always was wondering how can i make the world around me a better place. Initially, I was drawn towards technology; the first LP record I got from my father was Kraftwerk's Computer World. At the age of 12, I attended a programming class for the Sinclair ZX computer, learning BASIC and machine code. I was deeply moved by 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was 14.
My first professional design contract I received was when I was 18, back in Belgrade, Serbia. I started my design and branding studio in Belgrade in 1992. In 1998, Hartmut Esslinger, the founder of frogdesign, hired me to help the industrial design group headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and two years later, I was hired by IDEO. In that fast paced, 8-plus years in silicon valley, I did many projects and many succesful products. In the spring of 2006, I left IDEO to start nonobject.
*Q: What is your design philosophy?
branko Lukic:
That single question is the basis of the nonobject Design Fiction book. Nonobject is about the space between you and the object.
In the 20th century, we were focused mostly on the practical, utilitarian side of design, and later we were driven by technological advancements, marketing and business plans. In the 21st century, instead of design just fulfilling the basic needs, doing certain things or resolving particular problems, people will seek deeper, greater and longer lasting product experiences. nonobject benefits from not being constrained, as compared to design practice today, which benefits from being constrained.
*Q:How do you work?
branko Lukic:
I live my life, observing every day, and breathing design into things that I do.
*Q: What is your objective? Does success as an industrial designer appeal most, or being able to comment on design?
branko Lukic: Success as a designer does matter. It helps credibility, in who is going to listen to you, and what you have to say. But design today struggles. In a time when we have so many advanced tools to make almost anything, design became very diffused. That was another big influence, why I started to develop the nonobject "thought." If I can achieve the level of excitement in designs I create, on the same level as how you feel after watching a great movie, than I've accomplished my goal. It is a difficult mountain to navigate, but nothing is impossible.
*Q:With whom do you collaborate; how did the book project come together?
branko Lukic: 5 years ago, I started working on my point of view on design, and I realized that 19th, 20th century design was almost entirely about the object... I worked further and understood that everything I ever designed was actually intended to live in the space outside of the object: it was designed for people's connection to the object, it was in their mind.
That led to the further understanding that everything I did ultimately resided in the non-material world: your mind, the mind of the consumer, the people for whom I designed the object for in the first place. Their minds were the space where objects continued to live. So it is the space between you and the object in which nonobject was born, away from current design practice.
Barry Katz liked the idea, and we quickly started to work together in early 2006 on the essay for the nonobject Design Fiction Book. Jennifer Leonard and I connected at IDEO, and I really liked her thinking and approach in design. She is writing the text for all the nonobjects in the Book — Jennifer is co-author of Massive Changes Book with Bruce Mau Phaidon— and Bill Moggridge, Co-founder of IDEO, will be writing the foreword.
*Q:What is your audience?
branko Lukic:
With the nonobject Book i would really like to inspire the design and business community, industry leaders, and eventualy exit that circle and share ideas with general public.
The book, non·object, will be available this fall. Branko was also invited to present nonobject at San Francisco's CONNECTING'07 World Design Congress in October 2007.
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