You get the feeling early on that the Odosdesign team eat, sleep and breathe design.
To date, their biggest assignment has involved working with Gandia Blasco, a Spanish furniture and accessories producer. Throughout their seven year relationship, the team has carried out image art direction, produced catalogues and websites, and completed product design projects for the company.
Courtesy of Odosdesign
Pretty impressive – but in the beginning it was mere chance that led to their formation. Odosdesign was founded in 2005 by Luis Calabuig, Maria Mengual, and Ana Segovia, who met while they were all students of Industrial design at Univeristat Politecnica de Valencia (UPV). Soon after graduation they were evolving into a dynamic design force with global business ambitions.
“We would want to continue to grow,” Segovia told me when I asked about the company’s future plans. “Doing what we love and having more international presence.”
Courtesy of Odosdesign
Last month, the Spanish design studio displayed the latest examples of their work at the Salone Internationale del Mobile in Milano, a global exhibition for home furnishings. For Salone Milano 2014, the company designed tables and chairs for PUNT, a collection of wardrobes and sideboards for Arlex, as well as a pen holder for Italian-based Casamania.
“We describe ourselves as ‘constructors of objects and images,” Segovia cheerfully explained. “Our motto is curiosity, passion, and emotion.”
Courtesy of Odosdesign
Curiosity, passion, and emotion are essential qualities for the studio’s cutting edge contemporary design: thoughtfully styled furniture harboring a distinctive simplicity and seductive vibrancy.
Their Nara wardrobe designed for Arlex is a smoothly textured and patterned feature with stripped back beauty, and is both functional and eyecatching. The Mai Thai tables and Tyris-style chairs for PUNT subtly push the envelope of imaginative industrial design with controlled verve. It is functional art at its best: playful, colorful, and captivating designs that can be utilized to maximum affect.
My own personal favorite is the contemporary Piano wardrobe, again for Arlex, a smooth, jazzy, off-the-page creation. It is a warm-colored ensemble which resonates distinctive Spanish chic.
So, what about the intriguing designs the team create, and what are they trying to achieve with their work? “Improving reality,” Ana replied simply.
It’s a kind of utilitarian and otherworldly concept, but it is also the basis for the Valencia headquartered company’s success. The extensive and rapidly growing client list is evidence of this.
Easy to say, this young, fresh, spirited team is going places. Nearly a decade from their inception they are, with their futuristic and global thinking, taking the design world by storm and moving from strength to strength.
