Diiis Designstudio, based in Liestal, Switzerland, develops everyday objects that are anything but ordinary. Its two founders are connected by much more than friendship. Creative Hub helped the designers get their business off the ground.
“Europe’s terrycloth culture is underdeveloped,” Jan Leu and Nina Hebting said to one another – and set out to revolutionize it. With hand and bath towels that not only delight the skin, but also thrill the artistic eye. To develop their company “Frottee di Mare” they received coaching from our Creative Link programme.
Fashion label Thomas Jakobson has set out on a sartorial quest: to ensure that our ankles are well-dressed. The man behind this idea is designer and sock lover Thomas Gfeller. Thanks to support from Creative Hub, his business has set off on the right foot.
Pierre Naveau has taken two courageous leaps. The first was giving up his profession as a sales manager in order to devote himself to product design. And the second, when he decided to become an entrepreneur. A brilliant idea – and coaching from Creative Hub – helped him reach his goal.
Patrick Mueller loved building furniture. But something seemed to be missing at work. Until, one day, he decided to study Industrial Design. Step by step, he developed his own design language, and founded the agency PAMU. Our “Creative Link” coaching programme helped him achieve this – in a quite surprising way.
“kollektiv vier” specializes in the design of products which still have a lot of potential to improve. They have unconventional ideas and a very unique style, which resulted for example in a very special collection of shower curtains. Besides wallpapers and interior decoration these shower curtains represent their most successful products. Because they are so unique they surprise, attract attention and tell a story. Often the three young designers are inspired by poems, stories and movies. They have also designed a handsome foulard for the opening of the shop at the „Landesmuseum Zürich”. It is currently for sale at the “Helvetisch”, in the “Textilmuseum St.Gallen” or in the “bottega ethica”.
Isabell Gatzen, graduated from the ZHDK in 2005. She lives in Zurich with good connections internationally, is a prolific and talented designer. Her work can be characterised by notions such as simple, elegant, surprisingly new and yet timeless, made in high quality materials like marble, brass and porcelain. She has developed vases, candleholders and many other pieces of furniture and home accessoires. Her 721grams candleholder won the German Design Award (a special mention) 2015. She showed her products at Blickfang Zürich last November and got "style approved" by the women's magazine Annabelle. So we can say with confidence that the community, experts, and customers respect her as a real design talent.
When we talk about Creative Entrepreneurship today, we actually have to add a word to it: sustainable. „Sustainable Creative Entrepreneurship“ does reflect much better, what many designers and artists are about. They do not only want to sell their products but design them in a way they can be produced sustainably. The label Ait Selma – high quality carpets, uniquely manufactured in Morocco by Berber women and designed in Switzerland – is a very good example of this. It is actually part of the DNA of this start-up to safeguard a craft in Northern Africa that is about to be extinguished by using it in contemporary designs for western people. This supports some women to stay true to their cultural heritage in the High Atlas as well as to make a living weaving these carpets.
When we think about new ventures, we often see young people leaving university with an idea in mind, little money in their pockets and, nevertheless, getting started to create a new venture. While this is true for some design start-ups, most of the time, however, it’s the experienced professional that tries to position himself on the market “doing his own thing”. The first steps in the field of entrepreneurship are undertaken at an average of 5 years after leaving school. Many entrepreneurs will try as many as 5 times before they are successful with their attempts to found a company. Some have it in them to even become serial entrepreneurs. – This is certainly true for the fashion designer Daniela Huber.
Simone Huser is a fashion designer with a strong focus on printing. Many of her home textiles, her silk foulards or cushions, which are filled with Swiss pinewood, have some form of print on it. That’s why, most printings are drawn from nature themes or from Swiss cultural heritage – interpreted in a modern way.
The ceramist Nathalie Heid stumbled over a “business opportunity” a few years ago, when one of her close friends died. Friends and family asked Nathalie to design and manufacture an urn for him; and almost by chance, she found out that by not burning the urn, it would maintain its natural properties and dissolve when put in (running) water such as the river Aare.
Few people moved as swiftly through our programme Creative Link as Hanno Schwab. Since he quit his job as an architect in October 2014 and started to work a 100% for the development of his business, many good things have happened to him. There was quite a bit of media coverage for his ecological freeriding downhill ski and he won the prestigious ISPO gold award 2015/2016 for JACKDAW, his innovative product with the small carbon footprint. Even though he did not receive any cash, ISPO opened a lot of doors for him; he had offers for several hundred pairs from companies abroad.
