Droog Design

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1. Can I visit you to show my work to be selected for droog's collection? We prefer to have the initiative. Usually when designers show us something to be taken up in our collection, they do this on the basis of Droog products they know. They try to fit in, whereas we are always looking for new stuff and new ideas. Droog Design is not a style. We are heading for the unknown. So far we have never chosen anything that was brought to our attention from outside. -2. Can you tell us brief history of droog? In 1991 Renny Ramakers noticed interesting new products by young Dutch designers and she felt it as a sign of the time and decided to bring some products of these designers together and to present it as a common mentality. She organized small exhibitions in The Netherlands and Belgium. Beginning 1993 she met Gijs Bakker, her present partner in droog. He was preparing a presentation of the same kind of products in Milan for the International Furniture Fair. So they decided to cooperate and droog was born. The presentation in Milan was immediately a big success. Reason for them to continue and to set up a foundation. In the first years they did the work for droog in their private studios: after all it was restricted to the yearly presentation in Milan. From ‘99 they started to work in a small office together with a secretary. By that time, the work load had increased enormously. In 1996 they started to initiate experimental projects, beginning with Dry Tech which meant experimenting with high tech fibres. In 1997 Droog received the first commission of a company, i.e. the German porcelain manufacturer Rosenthal. In 2000 droog became involved in the IM masters course at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. Since 2003 droog is leading this course. In 2003 the droog bv started, a separate company producing and distributing a number of the products in the droog collection. And in 2002 droog started a small gallery in Amsterdam. In 2004 droog moved to a bigger location – in a beautiful historical building – which gives space for our office, a shop, exhibition space, reading room and a kitchen in which design dinners can be prepared. -3. droog means dry in Dutch, why do you feel this name represents your company the best? The droog mentality could be summarized as ‘dry’. ‘Dry’ as in dry wit, unadorned informality, ascetic irony. ‘Dry’ as that essentially Dutch inclination to ‘do normal’ and at the same time critically investigate what you’re doing and the way you do it. -4. How do you make the manufacturing and distribution of your products more accessible and affordable? We have initiated droog bv, the company that is producing and distributing a part of our products. This company has now started production in countries like China and Turkey. We presented in our show in Milan in 2005 the first results, presenting products that are 1/3 of the price they had before. -5. How does droog work when its gets commissioned? We work as an art director amidst a loose network of designers. Sometimes we ask familiar ones, sometimes we select new people, and sometimes we do both. Based on the kind of commission we consider who are best suited to work on it.

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