Ep. 154: Clever Extra - Revolutionizing Design and Shaping the Future with Braun

In this Clever Extra, Amy Devers sits down with Oliver Grabes, Head of Design at legendary design brand Braun. Known for iconic design, innovation, and the unique ability to be both revolutionary and relevant for a century, Braun’s focus on simple, easy-to-use design has led the way for functional, elegant, and enduring products.

Oliver reflects on Braun’s legacy and its future, including their global study with Gen Z - confirming inclusive and sustainable design is what matters most to future generations. Committed to investing in the future of design, Braun is also paving the way for young designers, students, and inventors through the 21st BraunPrize International Design Competition. With a theme of Shape Tomorrow, the BraunPrize aims to support and encourage innovative ideas that address the challenges we face today and in the years to come.

Read the episode transcript here.

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Read the Transcript

Oliver Grabes: Oliver Grabes, living in Frankfurt, Germany. Head of Design Team at Braun and I’m doing this because I love the process of design and creation. Always thinking about how we can make things better. 

Amy Devers: We do always need to make things better. 

Amy: I would love to know more about why you’re so passionate about making things better and can you tell me a little bit more about your story and give me a sense of your role at Braun?

Oliver: I think as designers we often look at the world a little bit differently and I think have a typical design person going through the world with this approach of how can we help to make things easier to use, better serving like what people really want to do with products or with other tools. And it’s something that is just ingrained in me. I cannot help it, I have to basically go through the world with that and it sometimes can be also annoying. But it’s always trying to find the better solution and something that is easy to understand and where you don’t have to double check and ask others or read instructions to use something that helps you. 

Amy: Yes, that intuitive ease of use is something that’s baked into Braun’s DNA it seems, and so I can understand why you might be a good fit there. What does your day-to-day look like at Braun?

Oliver: Yeah, it really was that kind of very strong connection between, I think, my own beliefs and I think what you find at Braun for many, many decades now in terms of design principles and approach. When there is a good fit there, then of course that makes it much easier because you really live your own beliefs and have a match with the brand beliefs. And what I’m trying to do is to help with the team in an everyday situation really to get the best solution for the next generation of products at Braun.

Technology, as you know, is advancing, things become even more capable, perform better, become smaller, are easier to use and that is not just by itself, but because we’re all investing a lot of time into making it happen and making it even better than what we have at the moment. And I think that’s really what consumes my every day, which is a lot of fun. 

Amy: It does sound like fun, especially if you have a compulsive need to look at the way things are and try to streamline them or make them better and more easier to use, more simplified. So how did you find your way into the design profession? It seems like you had a clear understanding for a long time, you looked at the world in that way. What were the practical steps you took?

Oliver: Well, I guess looking at others as well. I mean I was lucky because I knew that I wanted to do this, right? Often people have many different interests and aren’t sure what is the right one. For me it was simple in that way. It was clear to me, I wanted to become a designer and I think it was also clear that it was the simplification part of design. I grew up in a time where computers were still pretty clunky and technology products were not as easy to use as we wanted to have them and as we probably today are using our smartphones. 

Back in the 80s you had to program computers to actually get something out of them. And it was one of the reasons for me to say, hey, design really can help here, really can make a difference and make life of so many people easier. And that’s where I started then to go into technical design and appliances and computer and consumer electronics. 

Amy: And being the head of design, it’s sort of a big year. I mean Braun was founded in 1921, so this is your 100, that’s a big birthday, congratulations! (Laughs)

Oliver: It is a big birthday and it’s such a special thing for us and I think for many around us as well. Of course when you’re in the company it’s a big milestone. I think on design it is an even bigger one because what we celebrate with it is not only, hey, you have a company that was financially successful for 100 years, so it’s still alive. But it is really the heritage of what Braun and Braun design especially, really created and how it shaped the world around us and many other companies, right? And many other well-known players in the appliance and tech business were relating to what Braun was leading at the time in the 50s with their principles and their understanding of design. 

And that really is what we connect to, especially this year. We want to just highlight that kind of history again and heritage and how this happened and why it’s so relevant today after 100 years. And why it might be even more relevant than ever before to live these principles and have a certain approach to what we then call ‘good design.’

Amy: Yeah, I also think making it to 100 is an incredibly powerful testament to the power of good design and to the idea of building things that are made to last, last long enough so that they can become iconic and timeless. And so that legacy can also start to inform the future, like you said, not just of Braun, but of other companies who look to Braun as an example or role model. I wonder if you can kind of dial the clock back a little bit and remind us of some of the iconic products and major milestones that Braun has been through in these 100 years of building such a powerful heritage?

Oliver: Yes, absolutely. I think there’s a lot of things, especially within the design community. Some products that many people know, like the Snow White’s Coffin, the SK4, made in the 50s, 1955. But as a broader approach to this, I think first of all, starting at the beginning, 1921 Braun was founded in Frankfurt by Max Braun and in the beginning, you can imagine today’s start-ups, it was not an easy time after WWI and in an environment where a lot of things were not developed yet. 

And then as the day… As if you would be a start-up, but without venture capital, it’s a hard way to make your journey up into really creating products that are influencing other things as well in the industry. And Max Braun was really a great engineer, but also a great business person and he was able then to go and influence very, very fast. After some few years he already created his first radios and really had an impact on – not in Germany only, but France and England as well, and beyond – on shaping the industry. 

Now where really the design, the icon design happened was really after WWII in the 50s, Max Braun actually died suddenly, he had a heart attack and his two sons, Arthur and Erwin Braun, they had to take over the company and they were very young guys, 28 and 30. It was a big company they had to take on and they said, if we do this now, we’ll do this differently than our father was doing it. We want to have a very social oriented company. We want to be very responsible for not only our employees, but also with our partners and who we do business with. 

And also the products that we do should be very honest and different authentic. And they were inspired by, at the time, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and many of the new modern designs that came from the US and Charles Eames and Charles [** 0.09.58] Eames, furniture that you have been seeing. And so they said, well, what could be our way forward and that was really when this new design understanding, we call it in Germany ‘haltung,’ it’s a special word that I think summarises this approach to everything. 

It’s more than just design principles, it’s about how you see the world and with what principles you approach almost whatever topic. And that’s what they really did at the time. 

Amy: Can you say that word again? I feel like we need a word like that in the English language, say it again? 

Oliver: Yeah, it’s ‘haltung.’ It is something that summarises really your principles as a strong belief. It’s a mindset, but it’s more than that. It’s something that connects your beliefs with your actions and where you become very clear in what is it that you want to pursue. And I think what was great for anybody at Braun, in the company, was that with that very clear mindset, with this ‘haltung’ it was also clear to everybody what to achieve and what to work on and what to innovate and what was relevant. 

And it was all based on these principles of functionality, of doing things very simple, but with a high quality. So less but better that we heard later on, also from Dieter Rams, we’ll probably get to that later, already was ingrained in the company’s approach. And that really kind of shaped the whole approach the company was doing and as an outcome of that, you got all these wonderful iconic products that just simply, more or less simply, with a lot of hard work, of course as we know, in the details, that was then almost like the outcome of that principle based approach from Erwin and Arthur Braun. 

Amy: I love hearing about this evolution. I think it’s also just personally, I think it’s fascinating to overlay the evolution of Braun the company with the generations of the family and how evolution might occur from generation to generation in terms of ideology, but also in terms of implementation and reflecting society, what’s going on around you. 

Oliver: Exactly. And I think it was the… Personally I think the great thing that happens when you have these very strong beliefs and the family shapes that and of course at the time there were no shareholders involved. So it was really all about what do we believe in and it’s our company and how can we do something that we feel very good about. And what happens with it is, when you do that successfully, of course that’s important because otherwise you have to change directions, but it was very successful, building up even stronger the Braun brand financially, but especially also in terms of design reputation, right? 

Because it was a unique way of doing things. There were very few other appliance companies going that direction of a modern, simple design, that was functional but useful. But also very, very new in terms of radical, simple. You had all these decorated products before with knobs and dials and gold and fabric on the front. On the radio, for example, you might know that still from your grandmother or other people. 

And they stopped this. They really said, hey, this is furniture, this is decorated, this is not what a radio needs. All we need are these few things and I think when you have that, and this then of course evolves over many years. And the great thing is that it is not just then because the family believed this. It is because now at a certain point it is simply part of this brand. What we today probably call the ‘brand equity’ and every brand, every good brand, I think, is looking into that and how it can build that up. 

That is, I think, what Braun was doing at the time, almost automatically right? They didn’t really think about it, they just said, this is what we want to do and over time this was so strongly connected with the brand and embedded, that even when the family wasn’t part of Braun anymore, it just continued. And that is, I think, a fascinating thing because suddenly you can’t disconnect it anymore. Braun stands for a certain way of doing things, high quality, simple to use, minimal aesthetics, but very elegant. And then you just continue to do that.

Amy: It’s encoded into the DNA from its genesis. 

Oliver: Exactly, yes. 

Amy: Yeah, which is what allows it to continue and re-imagining itself, but with the same DNA. 

Oliver: You’re absolutely right and I think once you have that, then things again become easy because you don’t have to battle every project, every year, about what do we want to do. Looked Company A is doing this and the other ones are doing that. You have your way forward, often that is actually influencing much more others than they influence you. Of course what is very, very important on all this is that you stay in very close touch, I think, with people that use your products. 

You have to be very intimate with them. You need to look at how they look at things, you have to use the products yourself. You have to figure out every little detail that could become better and I think as long as you do that, I think you are rewarded by getting good response and hopefully over a long time. And I think that’s, at least, how it worked for Braun. 

Amy: You know, I just had this thought, but the physical labor of designing a project is all sort of speculative and theoretical and it’s all hypothesis until it’s out in the world and actually being used by people. And that’s the physical labor. That’s the inventive part. And then of course you hope it serves the population well in the way that it’s used. But then you get all that information and if you’re using the products yourself and maintaining that intimacy with your customer, your consumer, and you’re refining the products and dialling them in as you go, that’s almost like the emotional labor of honoring that relationship between you and the consumer. 

And the understanding with the intention that you design this product, to make it last long and be simple and easy to use, and you’re going to keep honoring that. You’re going to keep that trust maintained with the consumer. That’s beautiful!

Oliver: I agree and I think you summed it up really well. I think it’s about nurturing that relationship and I think sometimes this is… I don’t think any designer doesn’t want to do that. I think what is sometimes more difficult, of course, is when the brand fundamentals don’t have that built in, then for companies this becomes more difficult because suddenly to stay true to your brand, maybe means to not stay close to your user or to the person that uses the product and building into the product things that aren’t necessary, that feel decorated or unnecessary. 

That is, I think, the luck I have, I have to say that, right, with being at Braun. That it is always based on these, sometimes maybe not exciting and maybe a little bit more boring kind of principles of making sense, right? And being simple to use and that’s sometimes very hard work to make it really simple.

Amy: Well, that’s what I was going to say, that’s what people don’t understand. Is to make things simple to use, it’s actually very, very difficult in the design process. And requires so many iterations and refinements and edits and often a lot of innovation to get it to that place where it’s simple. 

Oliver: Of course we’re all in a very sophisticated world now, right? We assume things should be simple to use and it’s all thought through and all that. And again, I think many companies around the world are doing that and they are following now these principles because, of course, users will otherwise leave that cosmos where it isn’t easy to use because they see somewhere else, I can have that easier. And so I think there’s competition in that and I think we have seen, for example, on the smartphone, over the last 12 years now, I think it is such a short time. 

But the evolution of using complex technology and the amount of thinking and design work that goes into this, in this case UX design, right? And how important that is to still be able to handle all these apps, all these things on your little smartphone. And I think this started with the Braun thinking. At the time, of course, there were no electronics, but it was household products and how to make a cake in the simplest way. And not only making the cake but actually thinking about how you clean up the machine and all the parts that you’re using to make the cake.

And if you could do that in a simpler way, there’s good examples because the first kitchen machines Braun was doing were very engineered looking. A lot of sinkholes, a lot of technical bits and it was difficult to clean the machine. And one of the things was not just to visually clean up the design that was done then in the 50s and to make it look more beautiful and more, I would say more simple. But simply to help the overall functional process of creating something, in that case the cake, and to spend less time cleaning up, very simple. 

Amy: (Laughs) And you know, it is a simple idea and of course everybody wants to spend less time cleaning up, but the net positive of that is that your quality of life and your enjoyment of cake making is dialled up. Because it’s more fun to make a cake if there’s not as much uncomfortable ugly labor involved. 

Oliver: It’s a great thing that you’re saying this because we’re at the moment looking very thoroughly as design has evolved to a very… I think generally very highly sophisticated level on many brands. But I think if you look into like, we call it ‘job to be done.’ If you look into what you actually want to achieve as a person and how this tool, if it’s a shaver or a beard trimmer or a kitchen machine or an iron, what is it that you actually want to achieve and what is relevant for that and how to make that process easier and faster and also more enjoyable. 

Often you can’t really because of technology limits; you cannot really improve much more in terms of performance. You are already on a very high level but if so, then how can you make the time you spend doing this the best time you can have or a better time at least, you otherwise have. And that’s, I think, where design comes in to improve the process. To give you time back or make you feel better and give you a better experience when you actually use the product. 

Amy: Well, yeah, I’m a maker myself and I absolutely get so frustrated when I don’t have the right tool for the job or when the tool that I’m using is somehow poorly designed or not sharp or not functional in the best possible way. But when I have the right tool for the job and the tool itself is so considered and it’s balanced in your hand and when you put it down it doesn’t topple over. Like when everything goes smoothly, the whole process just becomes way more Zen and way more enjoyable. And I feel like I’ve claimed agency over my process much more than fighting with crappy tools.

Oliver: Completely right, yes. 

Amy: I’m so resonating with the Braun philosophy of simple, useful and built to last. 

Oliver: The challenge, of course, is to… As you probably noticed as well with your tools, you find out the things that make it great tools when you use them, right? So in use you can very quickly see how this is practical or not. Sometimes you even have that with cutlery where you think this was a great design, you bought it and then the spoon doesn’t really work or not as good as the other spoon. That’s at least what I found in our kitchen, we have several different sets of cutlery and you suddenly tend to just use a certain one that you think works best for you and the other ones look pretty, but they’re less used, only when the other one is probably not available or dirty. And so it’s an interesting process of what intuitively in use feels best and it’s hard sometimes to communicate that. Of course in today’s world right, where you shop things online, where you often, before you have it, you don’t even feel it, right? You don’t have it in your hands. You just see it online. 

Maybe another product looks more fashionable or more trendy or has a more extreme color and might be shouting more, and I think that’s sometimes the challenge for us, of course, as our objective is really to make the truly best product and how to communicate that as well in this pretty loud world where everybody claims that and everybody says, you know, even more features and more things around it by me.

And the good thing of that digital world is that of course with writing of reviews coming in, and people listening to others and their experiences when using the product, that is actually in our favor. Because then people tell other people how good it is when you use it and that’s, I think, the other side of this changing virtual world where you can see but you can’t feel the product. But then you have access to others that did use the product and then give you help on recommending it or not, right? 

Amy: Yeah, those reviews are the same thing as word of mouth in the digital age. But they’re also, I think, an outcropping of the trust that Braun has spent so many years engendering with its consumer. I mean when I see a Braun product, I already kind of know what care and attention has gone into it and it would be an expectation of mine.

Oliver: And that’s why it’s so important to have that consistency in this type of approach, right? I mean that started back then, as I explained, and I think what we try to do every day, with the new products, is that we keep that. Of course new products, new innovation, new technology normally that we build in, with that also changing ergonomics and changing how you use that, maybe sometimes even more variety of things, you have a product that cannot only, for example shave, but it can also trim a beard or do other things. 

And with that you get more flexibility in use and also can experiment. For example, on how you look and how you craft your beard, or if you actually want to have a beard or you look better with a beard. So there’s some exploration in also how you show up yourself, not just making other things. And we want to enable that. But then it always has to be on that high level of what you just said, the trust that people have in the brand and that we deliver on, that this is a product that you can have around for many years, both in terms of functionality, so it lasts, it’s not breaking. 

But then also on the design side, you want to have it around for many years because even after some years it still looks good and appropriate and calm. It’s not shouting ‘here I am,’ I am neon colored and have lots of things around me. And then it very quickly becomes last year’s fashion and then I think you just don’t want to have the product around, even if it would work. And that, of course, I personally think it’s not what design is. Design is really to keep it around you as long as it works. 

Amy: I agree with you. I also think that personally I am really fascinated and interested in the long term relationship that people form with their objects and the more that it stays in your life, the more stories get embedded into it. And the more memories it helps to trigger and the more meaning it has. And so just throwing things away on a regular frequency also is a weird erasing of your own life and your own activities. 

Oliver: It is. 

Amy: I don’t think it’s healthy. 

Oliver: (Laughs) It is not, you’re completely right. And I think there is another aspect to it, which is the environmental, the sustainability element of that. Because there’s of course many approaches to this and I’m thankful that a lot of designers today are looking into that more and more and feel responsible to push things into using biodegradable materials. But then also helping to construct things so they last longer because again, the longer a product is useful, the more sustainable at the end this all becomes because just creating a new product is taking so much, even if it is used short or long. But the more you use it, the longer you use it and the longer it takes for you to buy another one that does the same thing, then we have at least one element of pushing us in the right direction in terms of sustainability.

Amy: Yes. So in addition to a timeless appeal which nurtures the trust and the long term relationships but also is sustainable in and of itself, Braun has always maintained a finger on the pulse. I mean you talked about young designers, you’ve talked about the evolution of the company, you talked about technology and innovation always being a part of the Braun ethos. And so I’m interested in, after 100 years, how is Braun looking at the future? And I know that you recently conducted a global study, I’d love to hear about this study and what you found. 

Oliver: Yeah, and it’s good that you’re touching on that because again, creating enduring products and let’s say more timeless design doesn’t mean you don’t have to look into the future, it’s actually the opposite. You want to bring those principles into the future to help create a better future. And so what we were doing then, we’re trying to find out is that relevant today and is it just in our Braun minds and we’re speaking to ourselves or is that also connecting. 

The great thing was that in this study that we were doing with Gen Z, people aged 18 to 24, this was US, China, Japan, Germany, France, across, so it’s not just one market. But in general there’s a very strong belief or appetite for useful products that are inclusive. So that are usable by many people. So it’s not just something for somebody, but then you’re almost telling others, hey, this is not a product for you, so usability, inclusivity was highly ranked, four out of five people agreed that this super important for products. 

And then of course functionality, the same thing here, three and four out of the people we asked, and these were over 2,500 people in that age group, saying, of course a design, a new product must be useful and needs to be functional first, rather than decorative or useless. I think there was something also about have it being a good investment, especially when you don’t have that much money, right? How do you spend it? What do you spend it on?

Then of course the growing element of sustainability, more than half said, hey, I need to make sure that whatever I buy here, I’m not making a bigger damage to the world than needed. And so I think those… So what we call overall good design in terms of making sense, making the right things, is something that is today highly relevant across the markets, across the different cultures and within this young age group. That we find really encouraging because when you believe in this, of course you’re not just using your own products, you want to have others using your products. And buying into your beliefs and this shows in our success, I think, in the market as well, shows that we’re following the right principles. 

Amy: Yes, you’re aligned with the ‘haltung’ of the Gen Z generation. I also think, I mean I have a very strong belief that if you… It can be very difficult to be out front and first in some way, which Braun was historically. And you’ve built momentum and foundation with your brand DNA. So I want to talk about the Braun Prize, for sure, that’s huge. I also would love to hear about the Virgil Abloh collaboration? 

Oliver: That was huge as well, and so you’re right. I mean I think it’s like trying… There’s many ways of how we can influence others and I think in today’s world, obviously you need to create news that is interesting and exciting and worth, I think, mentioning, because there is so much going on. And what we thought about was then to really partner with Virgil as a design rockstar and superstar, a very well-known, very influential, a great person, a fantastic designer. 

And connect with him and collect also his thoughts and ideas on how to interpret these principles, right? And these very functional based kind of design approach. And because it is something where at first sight you would say, well, is that Virgil Abloh? And that’s why I think we were interested in that, having that collaboration. And seeing how this fantastic person could interpret what the Braun beliefs are all about. 

And that’s where we started. First, I think, with the collaboration on the alarm clocks where Off-White, I think we’re doing a version on this one, which was super exciting and interesting with the different colors that we’re going with. And then especially for the 100 years now, what we call ‘functional art’ piece. It was taking the… And here again another German word, sorry for that, ‘Wandanlage’ which is the name for the stereo or the wall unit that Dieter Rams at the time… I mean we have to talk about Dieter Rams here. That in this context as well, I mean Dieter Rams was the Head of Design for over 35 years at Braun. He was the mastermind behind all those fascinating iconic products that we have been probably seeing online, on whatever design channel. And he really is a remarkable design person, guiding the team and living the brand, I think, more than anybody else. And he created this special wall unit, it was a radio, a record player and speaker system that you can put on the wall as a stereo unit. That was end of the 50s, beginning of the 60s.

That Virgil then took on and said, well, I don’t really want to make a big change here, but what if I bring this together with a different type of culture that I come from, which is then taking the polished metal surfaces that we see, a lot of valuable goods and jewellery and other things and elevate it and bring it into that world and combining the functionality and fascination of what was there with today’s more shininess, and I would say attractiveness that comes with this material approach of polished steel and polished metal. 

That’s how he brought it together and it’s a fascinating piece. It’s only one piece that he created. Virgil was bringing this whole wall unit into like a shiny metal -

Amy: Yeah, this sort of polished chrome of the hip-hop. Yeah, yeah, it’s beautiful. 

Oliver: And it’s an interesting kind of bringing two worlds together that still stays true to Braun. Because back in the 50s and 60s, we were doing a lot of chrome products as well. Not with this wall unit, but with toasters and kitchen products where we used that as well. So it’s true to our heritage, in a way, but then applied differently. 

Amy: Remixed. 

Oliver: Exactly and It’s also a great conversation piece because obviously there’s people that love it. There’s people that are thinking hey, what have you done? (Laughs) And that’s, I think, what design and culture needs to do today right? Because there’s so much is available. And what we need to do today is, I think, to bring awareness of why do I use products and what is my relationship to it, right? Do I buy them and throw them away and then don’t care, or do I think about it, do I invest some meaning into what I’m doing here. And I might buy the better product and I might keep it longer and I might be more happy. 

Amy: You mentioned the Braun Prize earlier and this is something that is currently underway right now, you’re hosting the 21st Braun Prize International Design Competition with a theme of ‘Shape Tomorrow.’ And the prize is $100,000, no strings attached. I think this is a pretty amazing and supportive endeavour to support the future of design and innovative thinking to address the challenges of today and tomorrow, and also to support young designers. So can you tell me all about it and give me an overview of the competition? 

Oliver: Yeah, absolutely. I think you touched on it already and we talked about it earlier on. Bringing maybe this mindset of Braun and this type of approach to design into a young generation of designers. I think that’s the core motivation that already was there in 1968 when the Braun Prize was conducted the first time. We’re 53 years later, at the 100 year anniversary of Braun. So you see there’s a commitment behind this and there’s not just a… We do a design competition because it’s fashionable. But we strongly believe that this approach to design is building the brand, as its core, and it’s also helping others, I think, to do good design in other categories. 

And I think that’s really where we want to connect to the young designers, the young, up and coming design talents that will go to whatever company or do their own thing and we’ll help to shape the world and create the design of the future. When we are already retired, they’re going to probably take over and hopefully shape the world to a better future. And we want to start influencing the way we can, for helping them to get the right mindset for that, what we think is the right mindset. And that really is the motivation behind the Braun Prize. 

Amy: Let’s not deny, there’s a very serious leg up given with that prize money and also the support and visibility and encouragement that comes from winning a prize like this or even just entering the competition. You’re creating an ecosystem and a kind of relationship with the future of design that says to them, we are your ally and we are here to fertilize the soil that you’re growing in. 

Oliver: Exactly. And I think it’s something, as you said, there’s no strings attached. I do think almost every other design prize out there, this is not about making money or making this an industry or doing things first because of business. It really is more, of course about building your brand or maintaining your brand connection to design. But then in a way that it hopefully helps, that hopefully helps each of these individual young design talents that invests so much, as a professor for design, I do know there’s so much emotional work and actual work and physical time that students spend on projects. 

And that they’re investing into new thoughts and new ideas and with the time they have available, doing something new and different could change the world that yes, also gets them through university and gets them good grades, but then beyond that, not only in design, your work is your entry into the next level of either employment or opening your own firm. I mean it’s all about the quality of the work. And so we want to support that. We think this is worth doing that, so anybody can enter, there’s no fee for entering it. 

And then again there’s the $100,000 that we want to just give to the best young talents around the world that we think have done some exceptional concept work and thinking, especially, and that we want to reward and award with that, give some publicity as well, which is a very important element for anybody in design right? How do I become noticed and that’s, I think, where the Braun Prize can help. 

Amy: So this obviously open to young designers and it’s a juried competition. Can you talk to me about who is on the jury and what the timeline for events is? When are submissions closed and when will the winner be announced?

Oliver: First of all, it’s for any student and it’s for young professionals, meaning anybody up to five years in the business because we wanted to just focus on that generation of people that are still evolving and influencing later on. Submission is now, and we changed this, it’s now open until the end of September - because of the 100 years of Braun, we had a very late start on the prize and we wanted to make sure that whoever wants to submit has enough time and a chance to do so. Then in October we have a fantastic jury that is just confirmed, and I can maybe give a quick overview who is on the jury. And they will work very hard in October to then go through all those… And last time, in 2018 we had over 3,000 submissions, 3,087, so it’s a lot of work to go through that. So the jury, it’s an honor, it’s also a lot of work. 

But again, we have Virgil Abloh in the jury, which is great because we have the connection with him. He was happy to give us his time as well for the jury session. We have Gary Hustwit, he’s a US filmmaker and visual artist and very connected to Braun because he did the Dieter Rams film -

Amy: And Objectified, Gary Hustwit is a personal friend and also a previous podcast guest. 

Oliver: Perfect, excellent! And so he’s going to be a great addition to the jury. Also looking at Braun and design from a, I would call it a mega perspective. So not just doing the design and evaluating how people are, if that’s good enough. But also the meaning of it and the bigger picture, and I think he’s going to be a great help on doing this. Then we have Cecilie Manz, a fantastic designer, a female designer with a studio in Denmark, doing a lot of great product design over the last years. 

We have Sukwoo Lee, I would call him a Korean design superstar, a coming design person that has already created so many great products and we wanted to have his expertise also from his cultural point of view. And then Li Ningning the same, I think coming from China, I think in terms of bringing that type of new design culture that we see coming up. She has been, or she’s a head of design at Xiaomi, so very influential as well in terms of product design and shaping new products. 

And then lastly, I was super happy that we could get her, Johanna Schoemaker, she’s a former 2009 Braun Prize winner and a young design star that basically now is doing both fair trade jewellery but then also a lot of technical products, so really across the categories designing things. And having a former winner, I think, in the jury as well, I found really interesting because it gives you in the discussion we will have in the jury session, it will give you a different perspective of coming almost from the inside out and maybe explaining also the motivation of why somebody submitted certain types of work. 

I’m looking forward to this. Of course there is Stefan Schamberg in the jury, he’s the head of R&D at Braun, and myself as the chairman. So we have a big, but I think a really good group of people and a lot of people that are going to help us in terms of preparing the jury session, looking at are there products already existing with this type of concept or idea because sometimes you have people that are not the first ones creating something. And so you have to, of course in today’s world, search and look for those types of things as well, to enable then the jury to judge the best work in totality.

Amy: That is a really fantastic jury group. I am very excited for this and I’m dying to know since the competition was started in 1968, and you have a previous winner on the jury, clearly there have been some really memorable designs submitted over the years. Can you tell me about a few of those? 

Oliver: There were some things… Because for me, as you can imagine, we want to award good design and these young design talents, capability of designing exceptional things. You can imagine, depending also on what time, it’s every three years with the Braun Prize, so 2018, 2015, 2012 is when I started as a chairman. We have seen different topics, depending also what happened in the world. So we have seen alarm systems for emergency things and that was after things happened in the world in terms of earthquakes or tsunamis or those types of things. 

So people are reacting to what is happening out there. We of course have a lot of medical products which are by nature, already useful and that are making sense and they’re helping to save people’s lives. Obviously there’s a good fit to the Braun Prize, so we see a lot of entries there. What I found really normally most interesting are the more polarizing projects where you have somebody submitting or a group of people or a group of students submitting work that is pretty controversial. 

I’ll give you an example. We had, I think it was 2012, we had a group of students, four students from the Royal College of Art in London submitting a concept that was named ENTO. And it was about the art of eating insects -

Amy: Wow!

Oliver: Yeah, so normally, at least many of the western culture and then people here, we would probably shy away from eating insects because we don’t really… For some of us it’s gross, we don’t really want to do that and even think about it, unless we have to. And so what they were doing then, say like well, look, now we understand that, still at the same time it might be a solution to our worldwide food dilemma that we have, right? We’re eating animals. Animals create a lot of carbon dioxide, there’s the meat issue in terms of other discussion that we’re having about the quality of meat and what it costs us and the land it takes to feed them. Of course creating protein that in a different way might be a better way, and so they said, well, let’s look into that. Insects are high in protein, low in fat and cholesterol and rich in vitamins and minerals -

Amy: And crunchy. 

Oliver: And crunchy, well, depending how you prepare them. (Laughs) they created these beautiful sushi-like creations of food including then the insects, of course, in a not visible way anymore. So you take them and you change the way they look like and you just make beautiful, almost art-like food arrangements, similar to sushi. 

And then test basically if people would be willing then to give it a try. And they were very successful with that and I found that an amazing use of design. The design actually changes something from, no, I would never actually even think about it, to hmm, I’ll try and that and maybe actually I’ll stay with that. 

Amy: Yeah, that’s actually really compelling to solve the world’s food problem through just flipping that little switch in people’s minds that makes it seem unpalatable to palatable. 

Oliver: Because of the way you design it, try it and I found that a very interesting insight. Of course we still at the award ceremony, we had a lot of discussions about it and it was very polarizing, but it was the talk of the night about is that good or not. Is it the right thing or not, should we award it or not. And I found that really healthy and fresh in terms of that this is the role that design should have in terms of creating these possibilities. 

It’s a concept award, it’s not awarding final products, but it’s ideas and thoughts and if these thoughts are sometimes provocating, then that is a good thing right? Because then we think about, if we should change ourselves or is it maybe the product that should change. 

Amy: I’m so excited to learn about this year’s entries and who wins. And I hope that somehow I’ll get a little bit of a window into the jury process. I know you probably have to keep that under wraps until the winner is announced, but personally, I’m dying to be a fly on the wall when you discuss and deliberate all of these projects. For our listeners, can you quickly shout out where people can go to find out about the Braun Prize and see this Virgil Abloh collaboration?

Oliver: Yes, so you can go to braunprize.org, that’s where you find out everything about the competition. And also on the Braun’s website that is connected to it, you find more about our activities and also Virgil Abloh and to learn just about the company more, about it and the principles behind it. But the competition… And I agree with you, I’m just looking forward, hopefully, that there’s equally great and exciting submissions this year, so we can have great discussions within the jury and this is every three years, such a big and great thing to step also out of your business environment and then support the young generations. 

And also broaden your mind, because you can imagine for all the jury members and myself, this is a great thing to do because you think differently. Different categories, anything that comes and is submitted, this suddenly is something you have to think about. And so it’s a great process to be open and stay open and think differently and think very holistically. 

Amy: Oh yes. Oh yes, I believe it 100%. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, your philosophies and everything about this competition with me. I'm super excited about it and will stay tuned to see who wins and follow the showcasing of that project. 

Oliver: I’m looking forward to it and like anybody who is listening in and likes to submit or knows somebody who maybe could submit, I think encourage them to do so. The award money, I think we happily spend on people that basically build our future, right? There’s some commitment that the young generation is asking for and I think we want to give them this. They have great ideas, they see things differently and my hope is that they come up with solutions that are different because they might not just think the same way we do. And that is something that we really want to support and hopefully that over the long term builds up a better future for all of us. 

Amy: Well, thank you for that, we all need a better future and you are doing the hard physical and emotional and creative labor that goes into doing that, so bravo! Thank you so much Oliver - This has been such a wonderful conversation. 

Oliver: Thank you so much for having me and hopefully we can together all create good design, better design and do that together and make it the best we can do

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Many thanks to this episode’s sponsor:

This year, iconic design company Braun is turning 100! Learn more about Braun’s lasting impact of the brand at braun.com. This year, they are once again celebrating emerging designers with the 21st BraunPrize International Design Competition for young designers, inventors, and students. The deadline to enter is September 30th, 2021—so there’s still time. For details - Visit braunprize.org to learn more.

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Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Production assistance from Ilana Nevins and music by El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
Shoutout to Jenny Rask for designing the Clever logo.

Clever is a proud member of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to discover more great shows.

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