DSIGNIO is a Madrid-based product and interior design studio co-founded in 2002 by Patxi Cotarelo and Alberto Bejerano, both technical engineers in industrial design who also have a Master’s degrees in interior design.
Since then, they’ve designed products for such companies as Vibia, Peronda and Beltà & Frajumar, which sell their them in over 100 countries. As for their work in interior design, they’ve designed restaurants, offices, shops and hotels, notably the Petit Palace Embassy hotel in Madrid and the Petit Palace Opera Garden hotel in Barcelona. Articles about their projects are published frequently in the press and media as well as in over 700 design-related blogs. Cotarelo and Bejerano also give lectures and teach courses at universities in Spain, Japan and Mexico.
Cotarelo spoke to us about the studio’s vision of design and its projects:
Interiors From Spain: DSIGNIO is an unusual name — does it mean anything in particular?
DSIGNIO: It certainly means something, and has two hidden meanings. To start with, the word ‘designio’ in Spanish means a plan, a goal to reach and, when one is designing, you have to have a clear objective. But also if we separate the letters in the words, we get ‘design’, meaning design in English, and the upper-case letters ‘IO’, which resemble the numerals 10. So DSIGNIO also means a design that scores 10 — that’s perfect. Finally, we removed the letter ‘e’ after the letter ‘d’ so the name could be shorter, and be better-proportioned in the logo. So the meaning is very subliminal!
Interiors From Spain: Before founding DSIGNIO, did you work in other design studios? If so, what was that like? How did that enrich your vision of design?
DSIGNIO: Alberto and I met at university, began to work together and had a good connection. We were both attracted to the idea of setting up a studio together but first needed more experience. We set off on separate career paths. Alberto worked for companies for which design was an important factor, such as Punt Mobles, and Lotus Festina as well as alongside car designer Francisco Podadera. I worked for product design studios. Initially, I joined Ramon Benedito’s studio and I later had the good fortune of working with Lievore Altherr Molina for three years. I learnt many things from co-founder Alberto Lievore — it was a great experience, he was the best teacher I could have ever had. The experience left its mark on the way we design, including on the timeless style of our projects.
Interiors from Spain: What’s your understanding of good design?
DSIGNIO: We see good design as an investment that brings good results. It’s a way to stand out from the competition, of brand positioning, of improving how a user experiences a product, of economic success. We don’t see it as an expense but an investment that helps us move forward.
Interiors From Spain: What values do your designs communicate?
DSIGNIO: One fascinating thing about design is that you can convey feelings that you think are appropriate to those who use a particular product or interior. You can allow people to sit more comfortably, create intrigue, raise a smile, inspire affection or simply make people feel better without them having any idea why.
We like to influence how users feel in a positive way — and a common thread running through our work is timelesness. We’re conscious of the fact that developing a product or designing a space involves a big investment for our clients, so it seems more appropriate to us to avoid following passing trends; we prefer to create designs that don’t have an expiry date.
Interiors From Spain: Your studio designs products and interiors. Do you feel more at home in one area than in another?
DSIGNIO: We like to switch between one field and another and this helps us to see things in a global way. A product designer sells, an interior designer buys. When you’re designing an interior you need to be aware of what gaps there are in the market, what could be useful and be improved upon... These criteria help us to design our products. When designing products, you need to bear in mind an interior designer’s way of thinking, the clients’ needs, and so on.
Interiors From Spain: Do you work in other areas of design?
DSIGNIO: We focus on designing products and interiors —a big field in itself. We prefer not to work in other fields but collaborate with others who are experts in their field — such as graphic designers, illustrators and photographers — and are much better at what they do than we are. It’s much better for them to be on our contacts list than for us to encroach on their territory.
Interiors From Spain: Tell us about your interior design projects…
DSIGNIO: We’d have liked our first interior design project to have been a small, local shop in order to gain experience. But fortunately our first commission was the Petit Palace Italia hotel on the Gran Via in Madrid. It was tough for us to start with — a steep learning curve for us in a short space of time but it worked out well. The hotel liked what we did, we won the client’s trust and we went on to design the Petit Palace Embassy hotel on the street, Calle Serrano — a project that was highly successful and which we’re very proud of. We designed it 11 years ago but it still looks contemporary. We later designed two other hotels in Barcelona and Malaga. We’ve also designed offices, restaurants and shops but only rarely private homes. We prefer public projects, which give us more creative freedom and the resulting work can be more interesting.
Interiors From Spain: You’ve created a huge variety of homeware, including furniture, tiles, bathroom products and lighting. Do you design in different ways, depending on the type of product you’re creating?
DSIGNIO: Well, the design process is the same whichever area you’re in, but it just means our work is more varied, we get to learn more and it’s more fun. Our work centres on homeware and the ceramic products, and each comes with its own calendar in terms of when products are launched. Homeware is launched at the Milan Furniture Fair in April, while new ceramic products are launched at the fair Cersaie in Bologna in September. This allows us to spread our workload throughout the year.
Interiors From Spain: Which of your designs are you most happy with, and why?
DSIGNIO: We’re happy with a lot of them — the collections we designed for Beltà, some lamps for Vibia, our recent collaboration with Concepta…
We’re especially proud of the collection Collage which we designed for Back to 1907 (a brand owned by La Ebanistería). It’s a big collection of furniture with a sculptural design based on the key early 20th-century art movements Cubism and Suprematism. It’s a design with enormous visual potential and we’re sure that in 20 years’ time it will still be seen as modern.
We’d also like to mention the surfaces and flooring we’ve designed for the Peronda Group because they’re an example of innovation in the very traditional sector of ceramics. Peronda put its faith in good design and stood out from the competition by investing in innovation. It’s a great example of our work.
Interiors From Spain: You’re taking part in the activities organised for design studios by ICEX in Japan. How is that going? What have you gained from this?
DSIGNIO: Yes, we’ve been twice, thanks to ICEX. In the first year, a series of lectures were organised so people could learn about the studios taking part. In the second year, the Economic and Commercial Office of the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo set up six meetings for us with companies of interest to us. We think it’s a good thing, it’s well-organised and we’ve made great contacts. We’re just starting to create business relationships. We’re very interested in Japan — its culture, aesthetic and way of working.
Interiors From Spain: What projects are you currently working on? Can you give our readers any exclusive news about your work?
DSIGNIO: We’ve currently got several projects on the go: surfaces, chairs, an armchair, a washbasin, sofa, beds, shelving, shop windows… We’re even designing and developing a sports watch, a very technical, interesting project which will be launched soon.
