A family conversation
JOOST: You are able to see special anywhere, you can notice the unnoticeable, pick that detail and turn it in something else, transform it into beauty. You are really able to elevate the ordinary.
KIKI: I think it’s an intuition, when you use it the real world can become a garden of eden. I see the weeds growing between the tiles in our garden and i find them powerful: those wild unmanicured shapes of originality.
JOOST: You translated those weeds into a carpet for Nodus and then in tiles for Bisazza, that’s poetic.
KIKI: I can also see a humble honesty also in your work. At first sight is bold and physical but there is a softness there.
JOOST: Yes! But it’s only for trained eyes.
KIKI: Do you still remember when you suffered from insomnia, before we had our first boy? You spent your nights drawing and scrabbling. Your Collage series where you sketch on the surface of the pieces is among my favorites. I get lost looking at the details and find you in all those mathematics formulas and symbols.
JOOST: Is this why you call me the Mad Professor?
KIKI: Yes. And it’s also because you are so technical and when I see you in the workshop with the team and I see a king, a crazy one, in his very own kingdom.
JOOST: Well, yes I started sleeping again after Puk was born, quite the opposite of what it’s normal. Maybe you have a point here.
KIKI: Do you think we would be different designers if we weren’t family?
JOOST: There is always mutual influence in collaboration, but we have learnt working together and separately, both in private and public. We work at our best when we share, but we have such distinctive identities, there is no fear of compromising the outcome.
KIKI: Think – for example – about how we use colors.
JOOST: You are so specific when working on colors. Their shades, the depth, the combination between them and with the material. Your choices seems so logic and effortless but if you give yourself time to question and pull them apart, they are surprising and so different.
KIKI: I’m a child in a candy store when i work with them, I could spend hours in mixing them. Joost, what do you think is the secret for a good collaboration?