Dezeen Magazine

Design Indaba videos: 5.5 designers

Design Indaba 09: the ninth video in this series from the Design Indaba conference and expo in Cape Town last month features young Paris studio 5.5 designers.

In the movie, the four designers talk about their work together over the last five and a half years.

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Here's some more information from Design Indaba:

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5.5 designers at Design Indaba 2009

Paris’s 5.5 designers are using humour, production processes and conceptual rigour to question the status of the designer. Not even thirty years old yet, the 5.5 designers have a sizeable portfolio of work that embodies their quirky take on what it really means to be a designer and what responsibility designers have. Comprising Vincent Baranger, Anthony Lebosse, Claire Renard and Jean-Sebastien Blanc, the quadruplet will be turning five-and-a-half years old at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair.

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“When you work in a team, it’s impossible to just talk about shape or colour. Who can be sure whether green or yellow is the best colour? So to eliminate this choice and introduce new ideas, we try to work on the ‘way we design’ instead of working on ‘designing’. Each project starts from a story that we build around information or demands from a company, and that story informs each decision for the project,” explained Lebosse.

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About 5.5 designers:

Since 2003, 5.5 designers have established an enviable reputation, being awarded the Grand Prix de la Création by the Paris City Council after just three years of business. Far from focusing only on shaping objects, 5.5 designers enforce a conceptual rigour that sees them permanently question their design status. As such, they continually seek to create honest and accessible consumption alternatives that sublimate the ordinary.

Using this approach – together with humour and simplicity – their work has been sought out by a host of brands and editors, be it for luxury or mass production. The team comprises Vincent Baranger, Anthony Lebossé, Claire Renard and Jean-Sébastien Blanc.