PROFESSOR SIR CHRISTOPHER FRAYLING: Marc Newson's work as a designer has touched and indeed touches the V&A; at many points. Design art, postmodernism, one-off pieces that tell tales, Milan in a Van, even Cold-War modern, in that Mark has a love of the sets of Ken Adam for James Bond and Dr Strangelove, something we share, and indeed for the spaceships of 2001. The chairs we're going to be sitting on for this conversation are in fact Mark's chairs for the Qantas first-class lounge, made in Italy. And a big Manhattan collector of his work has said that the thing about his chairs is that not only they are beautiful and comfortable but they make you feel horny as well.Well time will tell ladies and gentlemen, I'll let you know in 50 minutes. And talking of time, Time Magazine recently named him in one of those lists, one of the hundred most influential people in the world. Not designers, people. Will you please give a very warm welcome to Marc Newson. You've designed right across the spectrum, coat hangers to jet aircraft... MARC NEWSON: Yeah C F: We are going to see both… What's your line on specialists versus generalists, you know there's one faction that says you should train, you know furniture designer and that's what you do for the rest of your life but you haven't done that, you've moved into all sorts of different areas. What do you feel about that? M N: Well to begin with I never trained really… in a particularly specific way. I went to art school and I …decided to concentrate on jewellery. But I concentrated more on making jewellery rather than on designing jewellery. So … and as you have pointed out I've drifted across a very, very broad range, I mean I think just about as broad as you could possibly be. I mean there are not many things that I haven't tried to kind of address. Not because I want to address or not because I want to tick all of those boxes but because I think as a designer you…really the metier is the same. And you know you're dealing with different materials, you're dealing with different …different scale obviously, that's a big differentiator. Different processes, different materials, different techniques, but, but really that's for me that's what design is all about. It's being able to kind of you know learn from one area and… and sort of cross pollinate. Take the expertise that you've picked up from say designing a sneaker and apply it to let's say the luggage industry. C F: And would you say that drawing is at the root of everything? Cause you're famous for manically sketching all the time, ideas, anything that comes into your head. Is that the root it? Whatever you're doing? M N: Well, I'm… I'm more comfortable certainly drawing than I am working on a computer, let's put it that way. You know I find that you know I'm very much a kind of, you know, I work in a pre-digital way. But my sketches are not the typical kind of designer sketches. You know again I didn't learn how to draw with sort of, you know, wonderful big sort of Pantone,… you know Pantone pens and things, you know my sketches are like thumbnail sketches that I draw with you know with a fountain pen. And my drawing book is like a diary of ideas, so. But it's really just a means to an end and it's a way of recording ideas, it's not, you know I don't chase ideas. C F: Yeah, yeah. The other big issue in design today is this in house versus consultant that… you know most of my students at the…at the Royal College hope as was had the ambition to set up on their own as consultants and sell their services across the piece. And the idea of working in-house for a company is very unsexy, you know for better or worse. And people like James Dyson would have said it's more fun than it looks… M N: …Unless you're Johnny Ive C F: Yes, well exactly, Johnny Ive for Apple is a very good example. What do you feel about it well in fact you've done both? Well, in fact you've worked for yourself, you've worked for companies like Alessi and Qantas, I mean and you've worked on commission. You've done all of them. What's your take on that? M N: I've worked for big companies in a slightly different capacity, always as a consultant, so I've always managed to maintain my own you know sort of autonomous…ness, I guess, and…and so interestingly a lot of large organisations engage me when they have their own design team. And they find it somehow necessary that someone from outside the design, from outside of their design world can come and…and try to solve their design issues in a slightly different way, you know look at it from a different perspective. So…I'm not sure if I'd say one is kind of better than the other, I know what I'd rather be doing. I've never worked for anybody, you know on a…on a salaried basis, so I don't think I could ever do that. C F: But when you're doing Qantas say, say you're doing the interior of this, you know, huge passenger aircraft. You know there's health and safety,

• published: 09 Aug 2010
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