Interiors From Spain:What’s the main inspiration behind your designs? What are your main points of reference?

Vicente García Jiménez: The best advice I received as a student was to observe everything around us – real things and situations – more acutely. So I think inspiration can be found in everything around us: personal experiences, travels, objects…

I believe each person’s points of reference, what he or she considers iconic – or however you like to phrase it – very much relates to his or her culture or education, they are personal. In my case, mine range from Alvar Aalto and [lighting designer] Serge Mouille to my father, mother and siblings.

IFS: Why do you only design lighting? Have you thought of designing other types of homeware?

VGJ:Lighting aside, the studio takes on the design of other types of products and other artistic projects related to company branding and to the realisation and coordination of events and temporary structures and exhibition stands. This allows me to travel and to meet and collaborate with people from very different cultures.

I love tackling new ideas. I’m a very curious person. I’d love to study the world of furniture in general in much greater depth, from domestic furniture to electrical appliances, from bathrooms to garden furniture, from office to factory furnishings – but all bit by bit.

IFS: What are the defining characteristics of your style?

VGJ: I think the best way to understand a designer’s work is to look at his or her projects. The same goes for artists and their artworks, with architects and their buildings and with bands and their records.

IFS: When you embark on a new design how do your normally go about it? What interests you most: form, materials or functionality?

VGJ: Although the starting point for my work is to take a very eclectic approach, the way it’s developed formally progresses in a very geometric, formal way, mixing primitive or composed architectonic forms which accompany the original intended function. Today I work in the following way: I study and experiment and I try to evolve in my work or rather grow and learn new things, and for that reason I never know what will happen in the future.

I think that the decision to mass-produce an object is much more limited, from a creative perspective, than producing limited-edition design, perhaps because of the difficulty involved in solving the problems - in terms of production, costs, assembly or transport, to name a few - often associated with mass-production. But precisely because industrial production is more of a challenge, I’m more attracted to it than creating one-off or limited edition pieces. I’m also interested in an object’s functionality – but I think it’s important that it has character, too.

IFS: Why, as a Spanish designer, did you decide to put down roots in Italy? What’s your view on Spanish design and how it’s evolving?

VGJ: When I arrived in Italy I was young, with a hunger to do things and see the world. That’s how my career began and that’s how it will continue.

To answer your second point, in the last 10 years, Spanish design has carved out a space for itself on the design scene at an international level which is to be admired and applauded. Lots of Spanish entrepreneurs have had a vision and have known how best to implement it. Companies like Andreu World, Bd Barcelona Design, Camper, Fambuena, Gandía Blasco, Kettal, Metalarte, Nanimarquina, Punt Mobles, Santa & Cole, Sellex, Stua, Viccarbe and designers such as CuldeSac, Jaime Hayón, Martí Guixé, Eugeni Quitllet and Patricia Urquiola, among others in the same league as leading companies in all types of sectors, have ensured that people’s views on Spanish creativity have altered radically. I think that things are changing in Spanish industry: entrepreneurs have realised that it’s important to innovate and communicate. It helps, too, that the Italians love the Spanish, which is always flattering!

IFS: What are your next projects?

VGJ: At this particular moment, I’m designing a series of cupboards, a wall clock, a new pendant lamp and a series of installations for the next Milan Furniture Fair in April.