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‹‹ really different from those in other countries. The French have
a unique way of solving problems, from the way they design public
telephones to coming up with devices such as the Minitel that
preceded the internet, or putting their subway on rubber tyres. The
Germans wouldn’t do that, nor would the Italians. At the same time,
these distinct ways of solving problems mean I can look at an Italian
automotive design from the 1950s, ’60s or ’70s and recognise that
it is unmistakably Italian.
These national characteristics haven’t had long enough to mature
in Australia, and probably never will, because now the world is a
much smaller place. They developed when people would work in
only one country. It just wasn’t feasible to globetrot, so naturally
design was more insular. It became on one hand inward-looking,
and on the other hand concentrated.
In a way though, Australian industrial design has benefited from
this, because if there’s anything that sets Australian design — or
mindset, or attitude — apart, it’s open-mindedness. It’s the opposite
of a national characteristic; it’s more like the ability to be able to
work anywhere, anytime, to travel freely, and not be burdened by
the baggage that a lot of European designers will have grown up
with. It’s quite an esoteric quality. If you were talking about any
other creative area — music, film, even art or fashion — then you
probably could go, “There’s something Australian about that”,
because all of those things are far more geographically specific.
Design isn’t. Design is international.
All of the companies I work with — whether it be Nike, Apple or
Louis Vuitton or another — bring me in partly because they hope
I have a fresh way of seeing things and consequently a different
way of solving that problem. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the
heritage and the baggage. They see me as this sort of outlier and
being Australian helps with that. I think people, perhaps even
subconsciously, recognise that in many ways doing what I do is
a microcosm of what it is like to be Australian.
But as much as design is a borderless enterprise, and about
creation, it’s also about manufacturing and production. I’d like to
think that the design of today and tomorrow is a way not simply
of facilitating the production of more stuff, but rather of better stuff
that is of a higher quality. Those are my personal hopes, and I think
good design does foster that philosophy, rather than the notion
of contributing to landfill.
At the end of the day, the most ethical philosophy we can have as
designers is to design things responsibly from whatever material
they are made from, which means not designing things you know
are going to be superseded and replaced for commercial reasons.
I’m obsessed with doing things well and doing things once. The older
I get, the more that becomes a mantra. marc-newson.com

FROM LEFT Aluminium
surfboards by Marc
Newson for Gagosian
Gallery (2019). Wood
chair by Marc Newson
for Cappellini (1988),
enquiries to Cult.

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