The long way round

I grew up in Milly-la-Forêt, a small town at the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, and spent most of my childhood outdoors: in that forest, on the beaches of the Basque Country, collecting shells in Brittany, skiing in the Alps.

Holidays meant my grandparents’ house near Le Mans, an old farm my grandfather spent a lifetime improving. He had turned the former stables into a workshop, and we built things there in metal and wood. A go-kart with no engine, so it only went downhill. A mechanical slot machine that only worked because my brother sat behind it, pushing the drawer back and forth.

I didn't start in design. At school I studied economics, then sales and communication. In 2000 I switched to a foundation year at Strate, then Créapole, and graduated in 2004.

At Créapole, around 2003, my product design professor, Mr Noury, told us: “Think about China!” It stuck with me, and he was right.

Then three years of freelancing for clients in China, Singapore and the US: lamps for TAOlight, including Smooth and Themis, a plywood cat tree called Lotus, kitchen scales. Small objects, real factories, very honest feedback. By 2007 I’d had enough of theory. What matters in design is doing and making, and design without manufacturing is nothing. So I took Mr Noury’s advice and moved to China, where things are made.

Lenovo's Innovation Design Center took me on as an industrial designer, and young as I was, they gave me a whole product line: the IdeaPad netbooks, just before the iPad arrived. I became design lead on five IdeaPad laptops, from the S10 to the U160, flew to the factories around Shanghai to approve samples part by part, tuned in-mould films on site in Tokyo and Kyoto, and filed two patents, co-developed with in-house engineers.

Beijing also gave me the smog. The heavy days before the 2008 Olympics were my turning point towards sustainability.

I’d had enough of working in a silo on small things, so I joined a creative task force at TCL Multimedia. Our job was the bigger picture: connecting strategy and brand values with design and with concepts that look further ahead, so the work builds lasting value for the brand.

I still took TVs, media boxes and remote controls from first sketch to mass production, in the city that builds a good part of the world's electronics. Two of them won iF Design Awards in 2013: the RC350 remote, and the V101, an LED TV only 11.5 mm thick.

It's also where I started mentoring junior designers and running design research workshops.

I wanted to work for a Danish design house. When I heard Jacob Jensen Design, the studio behind decades of Bang & Olufsen classics, was opening in Bangkok, I sat down and wrote what was basically a love letter to Scandinavian design. A meeting with Timothy Jacob Jensen in a hotel turned into ten years with the house, and a few surreal lamb dinners. I’m still grateful to him for that chance.

It started in 2014 with building the Shanghai design team: consumer electronics, outdoor furniture, smart jewellery, loudspeakers. Lots of foam models, glue and cutting mats.

In February 2016 I presented our work to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn at the opening of KMUTT's Knowledge Exchange building, the future home of our Bangkok studio. In May I moved here to set it up, and led it for eight years.

We designed for Thai and Southeast Asian brands, from kitchen taps to banking, and collected a Red Dot, a German Design Award and a Japanese G Mark along the way. I stayed for the weather, the food and the kind people. For everyday life, I haven't found better.