Phillipe Starck ! ~ Wanna Shake Your Hand !
Read this French Creative Genuis Product & Project Designer’s Interview in the latest HBR
http://hbr.org/2013/04/philippe-starck/ar/1
Hey Phillipe ! ~ admire your creative genius and passion and that you live for what you stand for ! ~ Living Life on Your Terms !~treading that path myself…
Some quotable extracts
- I don’t use my energy on other people. I just work and read. I live with myself in front of my white page
- But from the 15th of June to the 15th of September, I live completely secluded, locked in one of my houses, working from 8 in the morning to 8 at night, or making my own biorhythm: work three hours, sleep 45 minutes, work three hours, sleep 45 minutes, for 24 hours, without eating. It’s a little sick. But I’m like Dr. Faust. I signed a contract with the devil to sell my life for creativity
- I never collaborate—not because I don’t like other people but because I am not able to do it. I’m one of the fastest organic computers on the market, but I need to be alone
- I am a lonely guy—earnest, rigorous, an incredible worker—and I just make what I can, how I can, when I can
- My way is to not delegate. I design everything very precisely, so when I give my team a project, nothing is in doubt. They receive it completely finished; there is nothing to do except crystallize it: put it on the computer—because I work with only paper and pen—and make the prototype. Then I see the prototype, and I check everything. I’m sort of a control freak. I have a very, very precise idea: the shape, the weight, the texture, the cost. And until an engineer explains to me that for technical reasons there is a problem, I don’t change a thing. Of course, if there is a real technical problem, I do change. I come back home, alone, and naked in my bedroom where I work, I redo it. I have no problem with that. But I don’t accept it if somebody tells me: “Oh, you did it in pink, but my wife prefers green.” I say, “I’m sorry. I’m not your wife. You pay me for my know-how. If I think it has to be pink, it’s pink, and here’s why.” I explain the difference between pink and green, and all the types of pinks and all the types of green, because I know my job
- I have very few people—a nanoteam—because I believe in staying as light as possible. Creativity is something light. Some people I’ve had for 30 years, and I chose them first just by intuition. I love something inside them. They might have no background in design, but they have an intelligence, elegance, honesty. I just took on a new guy I met on the sidewalk. He came up and said, “Mr. Starck, can I shake your hand?” like a thousand people every day. But I got a feeling. I said, “What do you do?” He said, “I’m an architect.” I said, “Come tomorrow to my office and we can speak.” And I gave him a project worth $1 billion without checking if he was good or not
- I manage by absence. I go to the office two, three days a month, and those are the worst days for me. So the people on my team do what they want, when they want, but the results have to be perfect, crystal perfect. I cannot accept laziness or something that is not intelligent or any type of delay. If we say we will deliver a project on the 20th at 5 PM, on the 20th at 5 PM we shall blow the minds of the people we’re presenting to
- First, ethics. Thirty years ago, when ethics was not so fashionable, I decided that I wouldn’t work for weapons, alcohol, cigarette, tobacco, gambling, or oil companies or religious organizations. That’s a hard position to take, because it’s a big group, and they’re the people with the money to buy you—to buy your virginity. You can’t imagine how much money I’ve lost because of it. But I shall not change. Second, the project has to be good not just for me and the client but also for the final user. When you work for that human profit, you will have success. Third, I have to fall in love with the client. If you want beautiful children, the parents must be in love