This visit, hands down, was the highlight of my week. In all honestly, I had no idea who Achille Castiglioni was until a few weeks ago. Now I am obsessed with him: the way he brought a certain wit into every one of his projects, his seemingly controlled hoarding of funky objects, his fearlessness to dive into any and all challenges, and his beautiful and chaotic studio space.
One thing I kept hearing and witnessing during our visit was Castiglioni’s practice of “shape follows function.” I find it so easy to run head into a project with a focus on how the end product will look. I know that this is wrong, and seeing it worked out in so many of his designs really helped me digest why function should be a designer’s first thought. I want to begin studying the world as he seemed to. Looking at everything and every situation as a potential place to step in and make things a little better, make things run a little smoother. One way in which Castiglioni seemed to do this is by making things minimal. If you don’t need to complicate things, don’t!
Not only did I love ogling at all Castiglioni created and collected, but I learned so much in the hour we spent in his studio. Not only about him, his process, and his design philosophies (all wonderful by the way) but about myself as a designer. I tend to want to put myself in a box. I’ve spent the last two years trying to figure out how to label myself. I want to be able to say, “I am a graphic designer,” or “I do brand design,” or “my focus is in user interface design.” Not that these things are bad, but something I’ve begun to notice on this trip is that I do not need to set up camp in a certain genre of design. Massimo Vignelli, the man who designed the New York subway signage, said that “if you can design one thing, you can design everything.” I want to live my life as a designer with that saying as my mantra. Castiglioni came running wherever a need popped up: whether it was a massive arching lamp, a mayonnaise jar knife or a bike seat chair. I think he believed that he could design anything and everything. So if it’s good enough for Castiglioni, it’s good enough for me.
