Form Us With Friends 2011

Glossary ForCreative Collabo-

rations

(A)

PhotographyJonas Lindström

Ever since Jonas got his first camera at age five he has been obsessed with capturing im-ages. Nowadays he does so for a living and his client list reads like a who’s who of the Swedish design world. For this maga-zine he has traveled far and wide with Form Us With Love, documenting its new projects in progress.

What was the most fascinating aspect of working with Form Us With Love?It is the creative and inspiring dialogue we have with each other about how the projects will be implemented.

What do you think is the key to successful collaborations?It is important to be open to dif-ferent approaches and benefit from each other’s experiences and skills.

WordsJohanna Agerman Ross

Johanna’s first memory is of a blue glass bowl from Orrefors. From then on she has been fascinated by design. She is now a design writer based in London and was the deputy editor of Icon for three years, but recently went freelance to pursue her own publishing project Disegno. It’s a maga-zine, website and salon that will launch later this year.

What was the most fascinating aspect of working with Form Us With Love?To get such an in-depth view of their working process and to learn how they use design as a tool for regeneration.

What do you think is the key to successful collaborations?The ability and willingness to learn from other people and to respond well to constructive criticism.

Art directionSimon Renström

Simon has been working close-ly with Form Us With Love for several years. Alongside with other projects, he is responsi-ble for the studios new visual identity, as well as the graphic design for Form Us With Friends. From his base in Berlin he deals with both cultural and commercial clients.

What was the most fascinating aspect of working with Form Us With Love?I am always amazed how they are able to pay attention to every little part of a project. Nothing leaves the table without a careful insight.

What do you think is the key to successful collaborations?In the end I think it comes down to communication. You have to find the balance between con-structive criticism and pushing for your own ideas.

Credits

All texts byJohanna Agerman Rosswww.agermanross.co.uk

All photography byJonas Lindströmwww.jonaslindstrom.se

Art directionSimon Renströmwww.daquar.com

Form Us With Friends venueEntreprenörskyrkanwww.entreprenorskyrkan.se

Printed by Wassberg & Skotteon Galerie Art Matt 130g

Participating projects

Träullit Dekor www.traullitdekor.se

Bolon www.bolon.com

ateljé Lyktan www.ateljelyktan.se

Santa & Cole www.santacole.com

Westal www.westal.se

Acknowlegments

Contributors

A special thank you to

Alexander DahlAnnica EklundAnn-Marie SyrénBengt RääfCecilia JohanssonEntreprenörskyrkanHanna Nova BeatriceHelen EmanuelssonJan SkärgårdJohan AndréeJohanna StrömbergLinda LindströmLinn KandelManuel MestreMarie EklundMattias SvernedahlNina KarlssonOla ErikssonOlof ElmPaulina LundströmPeter ÖgrenPär JohanssonRickard WegeleThomas HolmThomas PlogbyUlf LiljaVictor Moreno

If there is one word that sums up Swedish design studio FORM US WITH LOVE it is ‘dedi-cation’. Never keen on hang-ing around for things to hap-pen, it has always used its own initiative to get to where it wants to be. It has been a use-ful asset in what is considered to be one of the largest and most devastating recessions that the Western world has seen for a century. Always very inven-tive in terms of finding work, it has weathered the storm well. “We have always had a very broad scope as designers,” says John Löfgren, one third of the Stock-holm-based practice. “We aren’t simply designing products but everything surrounding it too. That’s the reason we are still around today – we have a differ-ent focus compared to many other product designers.” In 2011 it is bringing not one, but two small-scale Swedish manufactur-ers into the design limelight,

demonstrating its trademark 360 degree view on product design. “We work on concepts and to some degree we think as marketing people. What we do in a way is brand building, both for our-selves and our clients,” says Löfgren.

FORM US WITH LOVE is Löf-gren, Jonas Pettersson, and Petrus Palmér. They met at the Product Design course at Kalmar University, in deepest, darkest Småland, a county in southern Sweden. FORM US WITH LOVE came into being there in 2005, in the heartland of Swedish furni-ture manufacturing. “We didn’t

have a dream workplace that we wanted to go to when we gradu-ated,” says Palmér. “So we set up on our own instead.” Surpris-ingly they didn’t take their first opportunity to leave the small town. Instead they set up the studio in Kalmar. “The sup-port for design companies out-side of Stockholm was big at the time and Småland is full of small factories so it was easy to find the expertise to make prototypes,” says Pettersson. The three designers epitomise the picture of the Swedish male: tall, well-dressed, quite seri-ous and sometimes a little too taciturn, always to the point.

FORM US WITH LOVE started as it meant to continue: deter-mined and with an innate tal-ent for self-promotion. The first product that went into produc-tion was the Vasa outdoor bol-lard for Swedish lighting com-pany Zero, completed before graduation. It was followed by Origami chair, a self-produced armchair in neatly folded alu-minium and polyethylene, which would look at home in a Bond-villain’s lair. Since then the studio has launched a steady stream of projects. Swedish contract furnishing manufac-turer Mitab has been a particu-larly generous commissioner. The Highway chair in steel wire and felt and the Button upholstered stool, made from fabric cut-offs from Mitab’s factory floor, are just two of the products from this collaboration. But the most well-known product to date is also the most minimal – the Cord lamp for Design House Stockholm. Here the cord serves as the structure and the holder for the naked bulb – a simple, but beau-tiful feat.

The aesthetic of FORM US WITH LOVE is that of a hardcore 21st century minimalism: mono-chrome and a little masculine at times. This is also the big-gest criticism levelled at the trio. When pictures of FORM US WITH LOVE’s new studio on Sankt Eriksgatan in northern Stockholm was posted in the blogosphere last year some of the comments were brutal, and all of them relating to the extreme mini-malism of the space. The emo-tional response doesn’t bother the trio. “One of the comments said something like ‘This must be one of the worst environ-ments ever intentionally created by humans’,” remembers Palmér. “But it doesn’t bother us, we think it’s great if something can cause such strong reactions in people, but to us, it’s obvi-

ously our dream studio space,” says Palmér. The studio at Sankt Eriksgatan is an attempt to create a vi-brant space for design in Stock-holm. It has already hosted a photography exhibition and there are plans for lectures and a pop-up shop. This kind of think-ing is symptomatic of a new gen-eration of designers whose focus is on collaboration rather than competition. It’s a refreshing attitude and whatever might be lacking in warmth in the look of the place is made up for with these generous ideas. “It is more fun to work together with people; that’s a more fertile ground for creativity. It’s like a symbiosis – where we nourish and grow together,” says Löf-

gren while Palmér and Petters-son nod in silent agreement. It is this kind of thinking that has brought FORM US WITH LOVE to where it is today.

Even if the number of products that carries its name is impressive for a relatively young design studio, the biggest achievement for FORM US WITH LOVE isn’t the actual product, but the process of manufacture. Through its relentless search for new opportunities FORM US WITH LOVE has highlighted local, Swedish manufacturing, maybe more than any other contemporary design studio in Sweden today. It is easy to consider local-ly produced design a thing of the past but through all of its projects FORM US WITH LOVE has shown that there are still great opportunities right under our noses.†

A cold day in November Italian furniture magnate Giulio Cappel-lini is warming his hands on a cup of coffee in Claridge’s hotel in London. He has just stepped off the flight from Miami and the difference in temperature is noticeable, despite his expen-sive Merino wool sweater. He’s here to launch a new product together with Disney, but our

conversation is quickly moving onto Milan furniture fair, five months away. With the look of a seasoned professional Cappellini doesn’t give much away, after 30 years in the business he knows the deal with launches. Noth-ing is certain until a product stands there, in the exhibition display on the opening day. But one name passes his lips. “FORM

US WITH LOVE,” says Cappellini with the air of a man who has made a great discovery. “It is really a very interesting studio and we hope to be able to find a project together”. That’s high praise from one of the design industry’s most powerful men. So what has it done to deserve it?

FORM US WITH LOVE

“THIS MUST BE ONE OF THE WORST ENVIRONMENTS EVER INTENTION-

ALLY CREATED BY HUMANS”

HEXAGON for TRÄULLIT

Woodwool cement board is such a ubiquotous material that most of us wouldn’t think twice when looking at it. Its sound-absorbing properties means it is often installed in classrooms, libraries and gymnasiums – a blank canvas onto which countless children have pinned their day dreams during boring classes or detention.“We were looking into different manu-facturers of woodwool cement board in order to install it in our new studio,” says Jonas Pettersson. “It’s never been a very sexy material, but we think it’s a simple and good looking product. Besides, we needed to stop the echoing.”

That’s how FORM US WITH LOVE found TRÄULLIT, the only manufacturer of woodwool cement board in Sweden. It’s a 20-man strong factory in the town of Österbymo – little more than a fleck on the map between Stockholm and Malmö. In true spirit of FORM US WITH LOVE, instead of just ordering the quantities needed for the studio, it initiated a pro-ject that would break new ground for the 60-year-old TRÄULLIT. This is how Hexa-gon was created, a collection of hexago-nal discs in a range of colours. “Nowadays you find this material in sta-bles and schools, but with this new collection TRÄULLIT can enter the design market and reach a new group of creative consumers,” says Petrus Palmér.

The process of making woodwool cement is quite simple: wood slivers is cut from logs, then mixed with water and

cement and put in a mould to dry into shape. The result is a material that is envi-ronmentally friendly, water resistant and sound absorbant. In the Hexagon concept by FORM US WITH LOVE, design comple-ments the practicality of the material, cre-ating a simple but striking product that is reminsicent of the Bouroullec’s North Tile system for Kvadrat. “In some ways it is a very small investment for TRÄULLIT but with the potential to gain a lot,” says Pet-tersson. The collection will expand on an annual basis with new colours and new shapes being introduced. The 2011 collec-tion is produced in a range of earthy col-ours with suitably nature-inspired names like cloud, moss, leaf, sky and stone.

“This is a new area for us,” says Bengt Rääf, owner of TRÄULLIT. “We have been doing the same thing for a long time and you get a bit stuck in your ways, so it’s really refreshing to see some-one taking the material in a new direc-tion.” For a company without any previ-ous experience of the design industry it’s a big and unknown step to take. “But we aren’t expecting them to show up in trendy glasses all of a sudden,” says Pettersson with a giggle. “We’ll wear those.” †

in·i·ti·ate (ĭ-nĭsh’ē-āt’)- verb (used with object)

1. To set going by taking the first step; begin2. To introduce to a new field, interest, skill, or activity3. To admit into membership, as with ceremonies or ritual

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2

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1 Träullit factory in Österbymo has been going since the 1940s.

2 Swedish wood waiting to be made into thin strands.

3 The wood wool is mixed with ce-ment to make boards.

4 The workforce in the factory is 20 strong.

5 Hexagon is Träullit’s first design product.

6 Form Us With Love started working with Träullit when they needed a sound absorbant for its new studio.

7 Hexagon comes in a range of col-ours and new shades and shapes will be launched every year.

6 7

HOOD for ATELJÉ LYKTAN

At the edge of the vast flat lands of south-ern Sweden, overlooking the Baltic Sea, lies the little town of Åhus. It’s a place known world-wide for its production of Absolut Vodka, but this is also the setting for ATELJÉ LYKTAN, a 77-year-old light-ing manufacturer with classics like Anders Pehrson’s 1968 pendant lamp Bumling in its archives.

Over the last year ATELJÉ LYKTAN has taken a different approach to manu-facturing, going back to its roots and highlighting the made to measure service that it was traditionally known for. The venture is called Ateljén and here a team of designers and craftsmen are avail-able to develop lighting solutions for the contract market. “With Ateljén we want to take a few steps back from mass pro-duction and instead focus on human con-tact and creativity,” says Thomas Holm, head of marketing for ATELJÉ LYKTAN.The first high-profile project for Ateljén was the Tree Hotel, a cluster of cabins de-signed by some of Sweden’s most promi-nent architects and built in the treetops of the Boreal forest in Harads, northern Sweden. “The six architects of the cabins were here for a workshop last year and they each designed a light for their re-spective cabin. This is what we see as the potential for Ateljén, a made to measure service for the architecture profession,” says Holm.

FORM US WITH LOVE started work-ing with ATELJÉ LYKTAN a few years ago with the LED light Ogle, which combines

the function of a spotlight with the ele-gance of a pendant lamp. Like the name suggests it seems to stare at its surround-ings, taking them in like a CCTV camera – menacing and cute at the same time. So when FORM US WITH LOVE moved to its new premises in Stockholm it turned to Ateljén to develop a light for its con-ference table. Designed to be both a light source and a sound barrier in the vast stu-dio space, the piece, called Hood, forms a halo over the table, catching loose sen-tences in its thick felt.

Although the light was made ex-clusively for the studio, ATELJÉ LYKTAN is now working on a production model. “We want it to be a modular system with the possibility of growing however big it needs to be,” says Petrus Palmér. The light is made up of separate felt panels that are assembled on site, making it a flat-pack product. “What we are presenting now is only half way there, but that is the beauty of Ateljén. It’s like an experimental lab,” adds Jonas Pettersson, explaining the pro-cess. “It’s interesting being part of their journey as they have the ambition to be-come something new and different and that is something that we can identify with,” ends John Löfgren. †

res·ur·rect (rĕz’ə-rĕkt’)- verb

1. To bring back to life; raise from the dead2. To bring back into practice, notice, or use

1 Ateljén is a new venture by ateljé Lyktan which allows clients to specify limited edition lighting solutions.

2 Hood detail receiving a coat of lacquer.1

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3 Hood is fitted with the latest LED technology.

4 Mounting the final details.

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If you for some reason were to Google “woven vinyl flooring”, a Swedish compa-ny, BOLON, would come up on top of all your search results. It’s because BOLON, located in the woods of Western Sweden, is the world-leading producer of this ma-terial. The success is down to the sister team, Marie and Annica Eklund, that has turned the company’s fortunes around since they took over the family business in 2003. At that time, BOLON’s best sell-ing product was flooring for camper vans.

“They are trying to change the way peo-ple look at flooring,” says Jonas Petters-son. “It’s a very conservative sector, but Marie and Annica think that flooring should be as creative as furniture or even clothing.” BOLON’s message has been communicated by some visually striking campaigns over the last three years. The concepts and execution of these campai-gns are done in collaboration with FORM US WITH LOVE. “They really get us,” says Marie Eklund who is preparing to launch the 2011 collection Artisan. “It’s an in-terpretation of traditional handicraft, but executed with modern technology.”

The new collection is made from a specially developed thread that shifts in colour to give the woven vinyl a tactile textile feel. The colour scheme is also in-fluenced by the hand-made – from burnt clay to ultramarine. To communicate the values of the new collection FORM US WITH LOVE decided to use BOLON’s

made to measure service BOLON Studio TM. With the help of this technology, that can turn any pattern or image into a visually striking floor, an image of a bal-lerina was turned into a vast floor cover-ing made up of 300 separate pieces and measuring 16x23 m in total. “There are no limits to what you can do with this new technique and to demonstrate the craft involved in the process we decided on this quite intricate image,” says Petrus Palmér. It took six professional floorers two days to complete the image on the floor of an abandoned industrial shed. It was then captured by photographer Jonas Lindström for the campaign.

BOLON is constantly reinvesting money into the business, to expand the production rate and possibilities. “We are currently investing 45 million SEK into increasing the size of the factory,” says Annica Eklund. “So when more and more companies outsource their production, we are expanding our own.” And judg-ing from the orders they receive they will have to expand to keep up with demand. English designer Tom Dixon used BOLON flooring in his London studio, Italian fur-niture manufacturer Cappellini recently opened a Paris showroom featuring the woven vinyl flooring and BOLON is cur-rently installing 76.000 sq m of flooring into Italy’s tallest building – an office block in Milan. Now that’s a long way off from tents and camper vans. †

ARTISAN CAMPAIGN for BOLONam·bi·tion (ăm-bĭsh’ən) - noun

1. An eager or strong desire to achieve something, such as fame or power2. The object or goal desired3. Desire for exertion or activity; energy

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1 A drawing of a ballerina was turned into a photograph that in turn was made into a floor cover-ing using Bolon’s new Artisan range.

2 It took six professional floorers two days to lay the floor that was photographed for the 2011 cam-paign.

A bent metal lampshade on a circular base might not seem that revolutionary, but for WESTAL it is. An expert on out-door lighting since 1947, the small fac-tory in Bankeryd in southern Sweden is better known for lamp-posts of a more traditional design. “The conservatism of outdoor space is quite extreme,” says Jonas Pettersson. FORM US WITH LOVE’s design Fasett for WESTAL is intended to simultaneously feel monumental and welcoming. It’s the first step in a long process to turn the company into one with high design values.

“When we took over WESTAL a couple of years ago we made the conscious deci-sion to position the company as a design brand,” says Ulf Lilja, CEO for Simonson-gruppen, owner of WESTAL. “But design doesn’t start and stop with the product, it has to be part of everything we do and FORM US WITH LOVE has a very similar view to us.”

FORM US WITH LOVE has given the sleepy company a design overhaul, stretching from packaging through to dis-play design and catalogues. “WESTAL is in a rather unique position in that it runs its own factory and that is an incredible asset nowadays,” says Petrus Palmér. “So in this project we are high-lighting the unique values that WESTAL took for granted by putting the factory in the limelight.”

Images of the scruffy factory floor

abound in the new marketing material, with that post-industrial, romantic tint that seems to fascinate us so much nowa-days. In an era when locally produced goods are increasingly rare, replaced in-stead by high volume manufacturing in the Far East, the remains of the industrial society are often redundant. In lucky cases they are turned into cultural insti-tutions, but mostly they are just razed to the ground to make way for new, swanky developments. In that sense the factory of WESTAL is a novelty and a reminder of the past. It also expresses a hope for a future where small-scale, local industries can be reenergized and put to use again.

“We are keen to build relationships with our collaborators,” says Lilja. “So this isn’t a one-off thing, it’s just the beginning.” FORM US WITH LOVE is now part of a design counsel that will form the basis of all the new designs for WESTAL. The first launches are by FORM US WITH LOVE and White Architects, but who knows what the future holds? A rather worn-down factory in the Swedish countryside might well hold the key to unlocking the potential of the outdoors. †

ap·praise(ə-prāz’)- verb

1. To evaluate, especially in an official capacity2. To estimate the quality, amount, size, and other features of; judge

WESTAL

1 Westal has its own metalwork factory in Bankeryd.

2 The wall-mounted version of Fasett.

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3 The floor version of Fasett is a hybrid between indoor and out-door use.

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GOTTSUNDA WARM BENCH for SANTA & COLE

“The whole basis of the design is that it should communicate warmth,” says Petrus Palmér. He is talking about FORM US WITH LOVE’s first bench for the Span-ish design company SANTA & COLE.

It’s a rather severe-looking bench, moulded in concrete with a pattern in-spired by heating loops. Inside the bench is a heating element using the warmth derived from the water involved in the cooling process of electric power. It’s a clever way of reusing energy that would otherwise be wasted. The bench has a monolithic, sculptural form, suited for the public domain in which it will even-tually be used.

The bench is developed with a spe-cific place in mind – Gottsunda, thereof the name. It’s an impoverished area in the city of Uppsala, north-west of Stockholm. Here the local municipality and SANTA & COLE commissioned FORM US WITH LOVE to come up with a bench that would enhance the public environment and nurture interaction between people. “At the research stage we did workshops with the inhabitants of Gottsunda and that’s a type of social interaction that is new to us,” says John Löfgren. “It was a very different experience from the some-times shallow world of design.”

The project is very much in the vein

of SANTA & COLE, who is preoccupied with enhancing the user experience of public space. In contemporary society, public space is often overlooked in terms of design and this has become SANTA & COLE’s focus. It’s home in Parc de Bel-loch, outside of Barcelona, even has a tree plantation as forestry also is part of the company’s offer. So on SANTA & COLE’s website, benches and bicycle racks are shown next to different species of trees, all blending together to make for healthy outdoor environments. And now some of that will be rubbed off on the community in Gottsunda.

In many ways SANTA & COLE has reinvented the role of the design com-pany since its inception in the mid-1980s. Its prime function is as an editor of ideas, rather than as a manufacturer, so it out-sources most of the manufacturing to lo-cal companies. Its base in Parc de Belloch is instead used as a campus for ideas and intellectual exchange. “It’s an incredible space,” says Palmér. “Not just in terms of creativity, but also in terms of its philoso-phy. It’s very inspirational.”

Besides from their outdoor range, SANTA & COLE also boasts an extensive lighting collection. SANTA & COLE is rep-resented in Sweden by Dahl agenturer. †

in·tu·i·tion [in-too-ish-uhn]- noun

1. direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reason-ing process; immediate apprehension2. a fact, truth, etc., perceived in this way3. a keen and quick insight4. the quality or ability of having such direct perception or quick insight

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1 Santa & Cole’s campus in Par del Belloch outside of Barcelona is like a laboratory for ideas.

2 The Gottsunda warm bench is developed for a municipality in Uppsala and will be part of Santa & Cole’s collection of furniture for public space.

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Form Us With LoveSankt Eriksgatan 106SE–11331 Stockholm+46–(0)8–218002www.formuswithlove.se