Gabriella Rubin & Niklas Kull
GRANT HOLDERS 2011
Gabriella Rubin:
What has the grant meant to you and your career?
It has been a great encouragement to invest in what I am passionate about and what I believe in. It is also a lot of fun to be part of the jury, partly for the jury work itself with all that it entails but also meeting the other jury members and former grant holders!
What are you doing today?
I work as a service designer at a Design and Research agency, InUse.
What are your two cents on design, today and tomorrow?
I believe that the concept of design will continue to be broadened and applied to new types of challenges and in new contexts, perhaps at a more systematic level. Above all, I hope, and believe, that design will play an important role in transitioning to a more sustainable society.
NIklas Kull:
What has the grant ment to you and your career?
When I first received the scholarship it gave me a lot of confidence that I was on the right track with my design work and financially it made it possible for me to take my projects during my Masters degree at Konstfack one step further in terms of prototypes, prints etc. Both very important after just finishing my bachelor degree at Lund University. My continuing involvement in the jury has given me a network within the industry and a better understanding of what is happening in other design fields in which I am not active.
What are you up to today?
Today I am working within the outdoor insdustry as a hardware designer at Fjällräven, meaning I design backpacks, bags, tents and sleeping bags.
What are your two cents on design today and tomorrow?
With our overconsumption and overexploitation of our natural recourses in mind I believe we as designers need to focus more on quality, material efficiency, waste and chemical use. We have to become even more involved in the production process and what consequences the decisions we take really have. We need to appreciate the materials we are working with and take full advantage of them, and hopefully we can create objects that will have a strong connection with its user.
