++cataci.com topics/Jon Eliason++

Jon Eliason is a product designer, and is widely recognised as a designer for IKEA. He has designed for Sagaform and Nybro Crystal, and has worked with the popular Swedish TV show Room Service. Currently, he is in charge of the interior design of Strandhotel.

Style-pd (PD) : Of the many projects that you have worked on, which was the most interesting for you?

Jon Eliason (JE) : I really liked the first freelance job in my career. It was a project from IKEA. They wanted me to design 15 products. They wanted to have products that have a feeling of luxury. Then, I started collecting many ideas of "feeling luxury". For example, summertime is luxury in Sweden. Champagne in summertime is luxury. I gathered 100 words of "luxury". After that, I started collecting things that fit in the concept. Then, IKEA said that I should continue....that was very unusual for IKEA (laughs).
When I first showed the sketches, they were shocked because it was very different from what they were used to, but they let me keep working. Then, I designed 15 products with very high quality. They were high-end products and they produced 10,000 or something, which is quite small for IKEA. Actually, the cocktail glass, Kylie Minogue is sitting on, was one of them.

PD : Isn't it unusual for IKEA to let you have so much freedom? Does it happen a lot?

JE : No I don't think so. It will never happen again (laugh). I could do anything I wanted....

PD : There exists a general impression that while IKEA has nice designs, its quality is not so high compared to other companies. What do you think?

JE : For porcelain and glass products, it is fine. But for furniture such as sofas and chairs, it is quite bad. On the other hand, the price is very low.

PD : Did you only work for IKEA at the start your career?

JE : No, I worked for a Danish company. I designed 200 products for the Danish company, but they produced only three out of 200 - that was very annoying. I worked so much, and they liked my designs, but they didn't get produced. But now I think it was a way to develop myself as a designer.

PD : What did you think about "Design Year 2005"

JE : I have been quite upset by that. This year they started ten design universities. Suddenly, we will have several hundred designers looking for a job. Even now, the situation is very bad for designers. We are the worst paid designers in the world. Now designers are working for free. Who can do that? That means being a designer is being rich. You have to be rich to be a designer. Otherwise, you cannot survive. If they put all those money to start new schools, they should rather pay for the companies so that they can produce demand for designers.

I am also surprised that there are always the same names in this "Design Year 2005". New designers are coming out every year, but they work with the same people, and they do the same things as 10 years ago. More things are happening behind them. Things are more interesting there. Media is not that interested in it. That is really bad.

Many young designers are working a lot, but they are not known at all. And their design is interesting, but no attention is given to them.

PD : Getting back to your own designs, what kinds of materials are most appealing to you?

JE : I am not fascinated by materials. I am more interested in shapes and am interested in creating emotion and feelings with shapes. I am trying to explore the possibility of shapes. Materials are just the means to give powers to shapes.