When you ask people how they imagine a bean bag looks, most of them will tell you the shape of a chair or a big puff. But Francesco and Justina, product designers from Milan, Italy, vision was quite the opposite. As they themselves mentioned, Francesco and Justina wanted to design a unique bean bag, but one that would still keep its simple and neutral style. We invite you to sit back, take a cup of coffee and enjoy the story of how Pusku pusku came up with the idea to create a bean bag with the Italian designer, which would change the entire conception about these interior objects.
Question: Tell shortly about yourself for the readers?
Answer: I am Francesco, Italian freelance product designer based in Milan area. I am a part of the senior freelance designer group called Why Not. For this project I collaborated with Juste Pavasaryte, who is a Lithuanian product designer born in Kaunas, at the moment working in Italy. Together we developed a new bean bag design for Pusku Pusku.
Q.: How did you found out about Pusku pusku?
A.: I was visiting a design fair in Stockholm where I have noticed an interesting stand of bean bags. Since a part of my family is Lithuanian, I spoke a few words in Lithuanian to Remigijus, Pusku pusku CEO, and we developed a conversation about our professional lives.
Q.: Why did you decide to cooperate with Pusku pusku?
They invited me to their office and I instantly saw that the team working there are young, creative, enthusiastic and open minded people. I also saw how the bean bags were made. They are hand-made products, where every detail is thought through: they only use durable fabrics, all of the fabric part edges, used in the making, are sewed, thereby preserving the fabric from unraveling. Also, all of the bean bags have an outer and inner bag, thus ensuring the product quality. When I saw all of the processes, I knew that this is a reliable partner. I appreciated the enthusiasm and willingness to make great projects of Remigijus and that inspired me to offer collaboration. The Lithuanian company, making hand-made bean bags and successfully communicating about the Pusku pusku brand not only in their country, but also abroad, perfectly matched our needs.
Q.: What inspired you to create a bean bag for Pusku pusku? How you came up with the idea? We have noticed that most of the beanbags have a shape that is not very defined and designed, due to soft materials. Also, most of the bean bags are monocolored because the fabric pieces are sewed in a way that does not permit an elegant combination of different colors or fabric textures. Our goal was to create a shape of the beanbag that is well defined and controlled and find a solution to combine textile pieces in a way that offers a beautiful composition of colors and textures. We wanted to find the element that would make the product recognizable and unique, but pleasant and neutral at the same time.
Q.: Tell us about the bean bag design, why it’s unique? A.: This concept is called Tube because it has a shape of elliptic tube that was cut in diagonally and connected again. The connection of these two parts is the main element of the object because it creates a stylish, simple and geometric composition.
Q.: Could you tell us about the development steps? How did you choose the materials, how many times the design had changed, how much time did you spent, etc.? A.: As for all our projects, we started with a research and market overview. We analyzed the production limits, possible materials and user needs. This object is a great challenge, since we are used to designing product made of hard materials, like wood, plastic, metal, glass etc. These materials are easy to control and manipulate, while textile and bubbles is something that does not keep one defined shape, it moves and deforms. So first of all we made some hand-drawn sketches to find interesting concepts. Then we modeled it in 3d CAD programs, but were sure in reality it would come out different. So we sewed mini mockups from pieces of textile filled with rice. Evaluating the result, we adjusted 3d files a few times and finally made realistic visualizations with Photoshop to simulate the final result. These visualizations had to communicate the shape, colors, textures and overall feeling of the design. In this product making process, the Pusku pusku team, who has a huge experience in the bean bag making sphere, were very helpful about picking the fabric and the shape of the bean bag. The whole design process took as around 3 months, working 1 or 2 days a week, from the research to final concept presentation to the client. We presented 4 different concepts and 1 was selected for production.
Q.: What is your life / work philosophy, credo or motivation? A.: We both share same passion and values for our professional life. We are not artistic designers, who mainly care about the aesthetics of the object. In fact, we are not at all in love with objects. Our way of living is very simple and essential, connected much more with spending time in nature and travelling rather than enjoying material things. We like a lot of the creative part of our job, we like to search for solutions of how to solve problems and improve products, making them last longer, working better and meeting general user needs, rather than following trends and superficial functions.
Q.: What made you decide to choose your profession? A.: I chose to be a designer because since I was a child I was always attracted to all creative activities: I loved to play with LEGO’s, I loved to draw or do any creative handwork. After I finished high school with scientific approach, I discovered the Industrial design faculty in Milan. I didn`t really know what it was about, only after a few weeks at university I`ve realized that this profession suits me perfectly. I love my job because it is very creative, it always teaches me something new – I get to design so many different products: from furniture and home appliances to sports equipment and toys, from industrial hardware to decorative accessories. This profession also makes me travel a lot and meet new people.
As for Juste, she was also a very creative child, had a strong passion for fine arts since she was little. Following her talent for art, she studied at Kauno Dailes Gimnazija where she discovered many different art and design disciplines. She found that product design is something that suits her personality best. After graduating high school, she studied Consumer Product Design at Coventry University, UK and later moved to Italy to develop her career as a professional product designer.
