Architects are known to have a fondness for industrial design and specifically for items that are streamlined, honest and useful. James Melia, founder of Blond, is in my opinion one of the 21st century heirs to the best modernist designers. Not only his work is beautiful, but it’s also smart and purposeful.
His entire business model follows a strict code of conduct of sorts, where he was able to parlay his skills into a position where he can choose to only work with clients that are philosophically and morally aligned with his firm’s. The result is beautiful, award-winning objects that defy conventions.
In this interview we talk about his work, where he came from and where he’s going.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
RVLTR:
James Melia is a British designer working in the fields of industrial design, branding, packaging, visualization, and UX and UI. A keen observer of human behaviors, he has been interested in unusual solutions to common problems for as long as he can remember. Since founding the studio Blond in 2015, he's worked with a variety of clients looking to disrupt their respective industries. Today we're going to talk design with James, along with some of his work and outlook on to the future. So thank you very much, James, for being on the show.
James Melia:
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
RVLTR:
So can you tell us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
James Melia:
Three sentences or less, okay. Challenge. We are a industrial design agency based in Central London. We primarily focus on industrial design, or we do have offshoots of that, visualization and UI and branding, which you've already mentioned. And fundamentally, as an agency, we focus on bringing a really deep-rooted narrative to the products that we produce, and focus on a very high level of quality as well.
RVLTR:
So when did you figure out that you wanted to become a designer?
James Melia:
Good question. I think I fell into it. I think I was kind of attracted to being a graphic designer, at school, and not for anything more than just being relatively superficial, and thinking it was quite a cool profession, and seeing that wearing suits and doing something that is maybe not conventional in this sort of academic sense. And then as I went through the school process, I started to realize I enjoyed making things and bringing 3D objects to life, your DT lessons and things like that you have in the UK. I don't know what you call it in the US, or in Canada. And then I went to university with the intention of being a BSC engineer, basically, a product engineer, design and engineering focus. Did a foundation course in engineering path. Surprisingly, maybe not surprisingly, and then realized though, at the end of that, that really wasn't for me. It was too technically focused. As much as I really enjoyed the technical element, I'm much more driven and drawn to the creative side of industrial design. So I mean it was a really lucky and fortunate path that led me to the creative industrial design profession.
RVLTR:
So we ... let's talk a bit about design in more general terms. We hear a lot about the idea of good design, and I personally have an opinion on what that would be. What is good design in your opinion?
James Melia:
Big question. A good design fundamentally has to consider sustainability. When we're talking about designing 3D products, which you're doing all the time, inevitably these things have a lifespan. So as an industrial designer you have to consider sustainability in everything that you do. That's the first thing. I mean it, almost frustratingly, entering design awards recently I've noticed that there's always a category for "sustainable design." It shouldn't be a category. It shouldn't even be a separate topic. It should just be embedded in every single one of the other categories. So that's the first thing.
But to achieve that, maybe it's not always just about the materials you use. Sometimes it comes down to how you actually manage the aesthetics, and assuring there's no aesthetic obsolescence that is designed into something. So not following trends. And that's a big thing for Blond, my agency. We don't necessarily follow trends. I mean, obviously we're aware of them. We don't intentionally disregard them, we just are not drawn to them or follow them from a creative point of view. We design things and embed kind of an aesthetic and a narrative to our products that is really driven by the user's requirements, functionally, aesthetically. And from that you naturally get a product that has inherent longevity to it, because it's useful, and aesthetically it's not going to go out of date. So for me that's a good product. Yeah, I think so.
RVLTR:
Yeah, that makes sense. One of my favorite product brands is OXO. I'm sure you're familiar with them.
James Melia:
Yeah, they do good work.
RVLTR:
And while their products are pretty cheap, both in terms of price and quality, meaning that some of them eventually end up breaking, but I find myself going back to it because they're so well-designed from the perspective of the user experience and how they fit in your hands, because they're kitchen utensils, right. So I think a lot of the qualities you've described are in products like that.
So when you start designing a product, you're given a brief, how do you go about making sure that all the things you've described are part of it, and what are some of the challenges you face when you're coming up with a new product for a client?
James Melia:
It's interesting, to circle back to your first point, that you mentioned OXO. Because we worked with one of their biggest competitors here in the UK, only really slightly larger, called Joseph Joseph. We designed a water bottle for them recently. They have, I would say, a very similar stance and benefits to their consumers. They're always looking for a USP that's actually beneficial. It's not just a gimmick. It really does solve a problem. And so working with them has been really enjoyable, because they have a certain synergy, I think, in the way we approach work. But to answer your second question, it depends upon the client, depends upon the brief. I mean every brief is so different. Sometimes you can get a paragraph from a large corporation and 20 pages from one certain client. And the first thing you need to do is to really, really define what the brief is and sort of collaborate on that.
First of all, there's something that people don't necessarily talk about, they talk about doing their design work, but sometimes just collaborating on the brief to an extent is a really important step. Really understanding what the client wants, whether there's any way to make it better and to increase business strategy, or increase the way that we manage to benefit the user. From there, what we would do is look to conduct, with everything we do, depending on budget, obviously ... it scales up and down, but a holistic bit of product strategy, and obviously research before that. And that allows us to identify market opportunities from a commercial sense, but more importantly functional requirements, and often functional requirements that the user wouldn't know they even had, that help us answer problems and create a really meaningful and useful product.
RVLTR:
And so a big part of design, both industrial and I think in any other area of design, architecture, interior design, graphic, is really to take the brief, kind of study it, do your own research, so to speak, and see if you can come up with maybe a better brief or better solution to the client's problem. So that's pretty well understood by designers. Do you ever walk away from a client because you don't understand the brief, or the brief doesn't mesh with what your firm's about, or you always try to maybe show them a different way or a different path, or maybe an entirely different solution?
James Melia:
All of the above, actually, to an extent. I would never walk away from a brief if I don't understand it. We always make sure that we understood, first of all, before walking away. But we've turned ... we regularly turn down work. Just yesterday we turned down work for a vaping product. I mean, I don't know, for us as an agency, that my staff and me would want to be involved in anything nicotine-related. That's the first thing, has to gel with the studio, and what everyone's happy working on. You got to think about your staff as well as overheads and just your general morals. Obviously, you have to be in quite a fortunate position like we are to be able to turn down work like that, which is generally quite highly paid.
We will turn down work after collaborating on a brief if it looks like ... if we think that it's not going to be successful or actually bring benefit, or have a reason to exist. That's the big one. It doesn't have a reason to exist, essentially it's purely commercial, and just for financial sake. We've turned down a few projects eventually, after sort of fleshing out the brief of the client, because it is clear that it will potentially be landfill waste in a year or so's time, and sold cheaply, and just made to make money primarily. Unless it has some kind of drive behind it to better human existence or make people's lives better or easier, then we wouldn't necessarily take it on.
RVLTR:
Yeah, that makes sense. So can you speak a little bit to maybe your design heroes? Who are the people you respect, both in the industrial design world, maybe outside as well?
James Melia:
I'd been asked this question before, and is it maybe a cliche answer, but I've always enjoyed Dieter Rams' work and still do, particularly from an industrial design point of view, particularly after Jonathan Ive and the Apple team were heavily inspired by his work. He's been popularized and almost a household name, I guess, but he's still an influence to some extent. There are several studios that have been operating for 20-plus years that I respect, and their continual output of good-quality work. And then outside the industrial design world, or maybe crossing between industrial design and architecture, I've always enjoyed the likes of Jan Echolson and Bruno Munari, just from a design thinking point of view, and their ability to be able to create long-lasting objects, really elegant analog objects, that will always be enjoyed for generations.
RVLTR:
Yeah, and it's interesting what you say about long-lasting objects that don't become obsolete. And you've touched on that a couple of times throughout this conversation. It seems like that's a common thread across your work, but are there other kind of design principles or a kind of philosophy or common threads that you can talk about, that are very important to you?
James Melia:
Could you provide an example, potentially, and then I will ...
RVLTR:
Well, similar to what you just said about obsolescence, designing objects that people will enjoy for a long time, and not just discard because two years from now it looks like it's out of date, or it's been replaced by the latest gizmo. So maybe to reframe that question, speak about if you have any kind of principles that you can lay out that you have written down, or your philosophy about design and how you approach each project.
James Melia:
There's three main principles that make up what we call conscious design. These are, first of all, we would say that every product needs to be useful. So it should be ... have a purpose and a positive impact on the user's life. If it's not useful, what's the point of it existing? Second, needs to be deliberate. So no detail is superfluous, nothing. You can see that in our work. Everything's been stripped back. I quite often say to the designers, when I have design reviews, "Why do we have these three separate details in this one product? Can we split it across and make sure that there is a particular meaning for that detail existing?" And I think that bestows all the work that we do with minimalism, which is not intentional from an aesthetic point of view, but actually from a design story narrative point of view. And then thirdly, we like to think of it as aware, so needs to fit within the world we inhabit, and not just designed for today, but designed to be passed down and enjoyed by future generations. So again, touching upon the point that you ... the reoccurring theme of the podcast so far.
RVLTR:
I'm personally fascinated with objects that are designed predominantly because of how they function. I'm thinking about cameras or motorcycles or cars. There's room for a bit of design, but by the way of ... because they function a certain way and ... when you use a camera, the shutter is always more or less in the same place, and you hold it more or less the same way. There's some paradigms that you can't really change or it might be too disruptive to the way people use the object to change. What's your thought on that, and can some of those principles be applied to maybe less functional objects that have a little bit more room for design itself? Because I'm always fascinated ... I'm a photographer, so I ... cameras are, no matter what brand you use, it's always kind of the same way. And I understand why, but I'd love to hear your take on that.
James Melia:
And there's a couple of elements that I guess define that, more than what people are used to. What functionally just absolutely works. There's a thing in industrial design people say, "No one's been able to successfully redesign the umbrella," because it's so perfect and everyone's so used to it. There's an element of that, I guess, to those things. Also, maybe there's a kind of industry standard that people are worried about disrupting, maybe. Most of the controls in the camera to the right. Is that correct? I mean, what percentage of the world are right-handed? There's still a fundamental sort of concern about taking, especially on some of the larger, more analog cameras, the more professional ones, taking analog controls and making them digital. I think to ... it'd be quite a disruptive product to rethink something like that that's been exactly the same for what, a hundred years?
RVLTR:
Yeah, and there are a few examples. I mean the iPhone is the obvious one, where you took something that had a keyboard and a tiny screen, and then you turned the screen into the keyboard, and then kind of completely changed the paradigms. But those are pretty rare it seems. And once something start working, it's more of an evolution then. Because fundamentally, if you take a car, it's working the same way it has for 120 years. It's evolved. Obviously it's more elaborate, more complex, but the basic driving experience is basically the same. So that's always been fascinating to me. And I wonder if someone had to invent the car today with today's technology, if it would be completely different, or if you'd had a blank slate, which is not going to happen, obviously.
James Melia:
I wonder whether it's just the car, though. And if you had a blank slate on the way that the infrastructure worked, as in the roads and the light systems and the roundabouts, then I think it'd be a very different thing. But the fact is that you're ... even these brand new electric cars you're seeing that look very conceptual, but they're actually existing, which is exciting, you're still penned in with the same restrictions. The Tesla's got a floating iPad essentially, and nothing else, which is amazing, interesting, from a design point of view. They're still constrained by exactly the same parameters in terms of safety and road infrastructure.
RVLTR:
Yeah, because you have to contend with the same infrastructure. You have a very good point. So is there a project of yours in particular that you're the most proud of, or that kind of stands out?
James Melia:
There was one recently. It's actually the brand I've already mentioned in the podcast, Joseph Joseph. They're kind of similar to OXO, you've also mentioned.
RVLTR:
The water bottle?
James Melia:
Yeah. That one particularly. I mean it's very, very difficult space to innovate in, if you're not just sticking technology in something. I mean, people have put LEDs and UV cleaning elements in water bottles, which is arguably innovative and useful, but eventually will time out and break. I think we always try to find some analog solution to a problem, or we know that we find. But first of all, I think actually being able to identify a opportunity in a space that's been so heavily occupied was really successful, was very happy with. We actually did a lot of observational research. You ask people about water bottle, not going to say, "Oh, I have deep thoughts," about their water bottle, to an extent. So we went out into London just before the pandemic, and took a couple of days just observing people using water bottles, and what we found was, people on the phone had the water bottle in their hand, newspaper, and they're kind of like struggling with this cap they've taken off.
And so we just found this opportunity to try to somehow make the cap less of a thing that could be lost, or could just be an extra thing you have to hold in your hand. So from that observational research, which I'm the largest advocate of, as opposed to interviewing one on one or even on a bigger scale, we were able to create a method where the cap just slides over the neck of the bottle and it stays there whilst you drink. So also has the benefits in terms of hygiene and storage. So if you take the cap off the neck and store it inside the cupboard, you're not going to get the smell when it's being contained and sealed. That I'm particularly proud of, and even more so proud of it that people don't recognize it. It goes slightly unnoticed, which from a commercial point of view is a bit frustrating. There needs messaging to sort of show that you can use this function, but if you manage to create such a great USP, and it not be screaming at you, then that answers all of the Blond ethos, everything we've been trying to achieve. And even though it's just a simple water bottle it's probably the thing that I'm most proud of, because of that.
RVLTR:
That's interesting. So how do you go about doing those observational studies? Where do you go to observe people using drinking bottles? That's a very interesting question to me.
James Melia:
Yeah, it's a bit of a spying, isn't it? And obviously don't want to take too many pictures because it's not ... It's a bit strange. But we went out to London, the Underground, the Tube, and particularly where it's hot, the central line, and luckily it was summer, so we saw people carrying water bottles constantly, in a typical sort of tourist hotspot in London, like Trafalgar Square and the Tate Museum and various other places in London, and just sat there and observed. Basically took a couple of Tube stops, sat on some benches, watched people going about their lunch break with their reusable or non-reusable water bottle, and just how they were carrying it, how they're using it, how they're drinking from it. Yeah.
RVLTR:
So you basically get paid to people watch.
James Melia:
Basically. This is a great job. Hey.
RVLTR:
That's amazing. So you've alluded to that in the talking about the bottle, the use of technology and industrial design. And I think that's a great segue to talk about more how big tech ... or how tech in general, is getting used in industrial design, and how do you see that looking in the future?
James Melia:
It's a difficult thing to respond to. I think there's some exciting opportunities from industrial design process with technology, and how you present your work to clients, augmented reality and VR. From a product point of view, there are some great opportunities for us to be able to better the world we live in, especially with, for example, EVs and electric transportation mobility in general.
RVLTR:
What would be maybe a dream project? Maybe there's an assignment that you've thought about that you'd like to get, but you haven't gotten a chance to. What would that look like to you?
James Melia:
I'm a furniture designer by trade, so I actually have a degree in furniture design. And I think actually a dream project now would be some expanding of my furniture portfolio. So a desk chair, something really that benefits the ergonomics of ... and benefits just in the way that people sit, and their posture and general ergonomics of working. That would be an absolutely lovely project. That would be a dream project. Also, because we're relatively large, and when you run an agency, small projects, as much as they're really fun, it's nice to have a long, large project that takes a while to develop, and you can really get your teeth sunk into.
And that, and then my answer's always the same. I mean I've been asked it one or two times. As an agency, I always ensure that we have a variety of work coming through the door. I mean, we design within the same month coat hangers and refrigerators and air conditioners and glass Tupperware. So the variety's really important, I think, just to ensure that everyone is on their toes and interested, and every day is different for them, and they enjoy coming into work. And so the dream brief is one that's different to the previous briefs, which is a slightly non-answer I suppose, but it's true. So.
RVLTR:
That's a very designer answer.
James Melia:
Yeah.
RVLTR:
One of the last questions I have for you, it's a bit on the lighter side. Where does the name Blond come from, and what does it mean to you?
James Melia:
On the lighter side, but it has a long answer. Yeah. I had a podcast a couple weeks ago, and apparently the person did lots of question-asking for the audience beforehand to say, "What were your questions for James?" And it was the main asked question, apparently. I understand why. I was looking for names for a long time, and I did lots of workshop sessions with my friends, and I was trying to create this name that had this meaning, and the way that we bring design details together, and there's some process we're looking to adopt as an agency. And the first ... one of the first names that landed, kind of thought, that's it, was a name called Cohesion, right. Cohesion. And I thought ... we both thought, "That's it. That's it. We found the name." And the person I was working with at the time, he's actually recently come back to the business. And we went to bed and woke up, and we'd both forgotten what the name was. So it was quite evident that that wasn't the name, because it wasn't memorable.
So from there I was on a quest to look for something memorable. And in doing so I was thinking about lots of different band names or company names or anything that sticks out in my head. And there's two that always stuck out in my head, which were Acne, which is a clothing brand, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, not a band I like, but I remember their name for some reason. I think about them. And I was trying to analyze-
RVLTR:
Do you know what the Red Hot Chili Peppers' first name was?
James Melia:
No. No, no. Go on.
RVLTR:
So if I remember correctly, because it's a bit long and complicated, it's [Tony Flow and the] Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem.
James Melia:
I did know that. I did know that. I was a big fan of their first couple of albums, particularly Californication. So I had heard that, I think. Yeah. Interesting. It's much better. Red Hot Chili Peppers must have been more memorable.
RVLTR:
Yeah, yeah. It's probably a bit too punk maybe for what they're doing now.
James Melia:
Yeah, maybe. And so basically I was analyzing those, and I thought they were really interesting case studies, because you don't think about the actual chili pepper when you think about Red Hot Chili Peppers. You think about the band. And likewise with Acne, you don't think about spots. Again, I'm not ... still haven't looked it up, probably should, but I think it's a French brand. I think it means something else in French maybe. But anyway, you think about the really beautiful bits of clothing they make, particularly if you know the brand. And therefore I was looking for a name that stuck out in people's minds and they remembered. Equally, it needed to have some kind of meaning. And I came along ... I came up with the name of Blond, basically based upon the color of wood. So being relatively unintrusive, not shouting, some kind of longevity to it aesthetically. As you've noticed, that's a running theme.
And then also the other fact that it has this connotation of hair color, which does make people smile and almost laugh, basically, at you. Because of that, it doesn't get forgotten. I always give this example of when I was completely validated. I went into the room with LG UK one day, was really early days, my first time in the company. And one of the design directors said, as soon as he walked through the door, I think it was even before hello, "I expected you to be wearing blonde wigs." And he was taking the piss completely. Fine though, justified. But at that moment, as much as he was taking the mick, I knew that we'd found a name that people would remember and ask about, as part of enjoying it.
RVLTR:
Do you go to meetings wearing blonde wigs?
James Melia:
No.
RVLTR:
Because that would be a great icebreaker if you wore like a ... what is it called, a bob cut? Or that's kind of really straight chin length hair with bangs. That would be hilarious.
James Melia:
Yeah. You call it bangs, don't you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that would be funny. No, I don't. And then, other reasons are slightly less interesting.
RVLTR:
And it's funny how a good name keeps on giving you new meanings over time, right?
James Melia:
Yeah.
RVLTR:
That's how you know whether you've picked a good name or not, if you keep coming up with new meanings for it. One of the last questions I have, to get back to a slightly more serious topic, what are some of the lessons you've learned from being a successful industrial designer that you think could apply to architecture and interior design?
James Melia:
The running of a business, probably. I think that crosses everything from all aspects of creativity and beyond. And starting a company. Some of the lessons I learned early on maybe could transfer across for someone looking to start an architecture business, maybe.
I started it with no clients, and no portfolio. I took a £15K loan to basically fund six months-plus of mortgage repayments, and hoped that I would get some work. And my advice to people would be to take more if you're going to take a loan, because that was naive, and that was far too little. But to go for it. And that's the way to do it, is to add that pressure. Obviously there was a big risk there, but I had to make it work. There was a ... And I always had this ... sort of relatively scared of public speaking, even doing this kind of thing. I'd be quite nervous, I mean most throughout my whole life. And then during those first six months, when I had the ticking pressure of the financial side of things, as much as I probably lost a bit of hair in the process, all those barriers, that I want to worry, gone. Suddenly I'd stop being nervous, talk to people, trying to get work, doing these kinds of things. And so some of the biggest learnings I've had is just to, if you want to do it, you want to create your own business, just do it, take the risk, but maybe give yourself a little bit more of a buffer than probably six months worth of overheads.
RVLTR:
And so how long was it until you got your first job?
James Melia:
We were really lucky. I think we got one within the first ... Well, we had a very small one right at the beginning, within the first couple of days. But then I think the big one came within three or four weeks.
RVLTR:
That's pretty fast.
James Melia:
I had been building a website, and I incorporated the company the year before, when I was working full-time. And every single weekend I'd been building a portfolio, albeit conceptual. So it wasn't starting completely from scratch. I had something to hit the floor running with.
RVLTR:
Gotcha. That's all for the questions I had today.
James Melia:
Thank you very much for having me on, and thank you very much everybody for listening.