William Brand exudes a jovial presence, although you wouldn’t know it from looking at his designs.
Under his Brand Von Egmond label, the Dutch lighting designer has created a body of work that is cerebral and sculptural, mirroring the complex forms of nature.
An architect by training, William’s design approach is context-dependent, his products forming both a natural extension of the space as much as they give it new meaning. I design for buildings, and not for making an object. I design for the total, he explains to Home Journal.
We sat down with him to discuss talk shows, condiments, and the hierarchy of design.
I went to art school, not to start a business or a solid future, but to follow my passion and simply to create. That’s what I’m still doing. I’m like a child, always making paintings, drawings and cuttings. My younger brother was born when I was nine – I had a youth alone, so I had to invent something to keep myself busy. That’s where the seed was put into the ground.
I don’t read magazines because I’m afraid I’ll be influenced. I want to act on my own energy. Normally, I work more as a sculptor than a designer. I simply play like a child with the material, and out of your hands, things grow. As a child, you let it happen, but when you get older, you begin to think.
There’s a hierarchy: most important is the architecture, and then interior design, then product design.
Nature is everlasting. What attracts and intrigues me about nature is organised chaos. There’s a logic behind it and a certain harmony that comes over this natural thing. I make a chaos that is attractive to me, and from this chaos, I create order. You create a sort of tension.
Architecture is a very beautiful platform to expose my things. There’s a hierarchy: most important is the architecture, and then interior design, then product design. However, I don’t see them separately, but as a total. That’s what I do in my cooperation with architects and interior designers. One plus one becomes three.
I want to be the salt and pepper in interior design, the thing which gives identity to a space.
I’m more of a listener in my character. I’m a talk show host. You might think they’re very unimportant, but they are shaping the show. People come to me with a special question, and sometimes they want to force me towards their way, but I have to stop them and draw a line. They shouldn’t tell me what to make, but I also won’t tell them what to like – instead I gently teach them what to do. I know the puzzle.
I want to be the salt and pepper in interior design, the thing which gives identity to a space. I do not make neutral things. I always say that my products are the earrings for the building. I give a space its identity.
A version of this article originally appears in our January 2019 issue, available now.
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