Creativity in design
The Competition Workshop is a creative methodology formulated by VillaTosca and directed at companies that intend to develop the design of innovative products. Designers are invited to attend a series of meetings, true seminars, where they investigate, together with internationally known experts and the customer company, the themes inherent to the product to be developed (form, space, color, function, but also art, philosophy, science, technology, etc.). A competition ensues in which the designers individually prepare a series of solutions for the project which are then proposed to the company. During the phase of collective elaboration among the specialists of various disciplines, company managers and designers establish a strong cooperative bond which bears fruit in the emulation stage when the designers pass from group research and intellectual stimulation to individual invention and design. This combination of cooperation with competition is particularly effective during the practical stage.
Innovative solutions for the company
Today's
companies must find ingenious solutions to a number of problems: intuit new
stylistic tendencies; reduce production costs through more effective and winning
design; construct the company image through the design of new products; control
planning costs. The Competition Workshop responds to each and every one of
these needs with four characteristics:
1. A multiform variety of proposals
The first advantage of the Competition Workshop is that, without turning directly
to numerous design studios, it analyzes and selects the product the company
desires.
2. Flexibility and cost control
The Competition Workshop carries out a 'project program' tailored to fit the
needs of the individual company. Each time, the type and number of designers
invited to the seminars are specifically selected to this end.
3. Investigation and analyses of market trends
The first stage of the seminars - speeches, discussions, meetings, and group
study of the themes - presents the advantage of immediate verification of
market tendencies in the particular sector which interests the customer company.
4. Beyond hardware
The Competition Workshop allows the planners to thoroughly explore the themes
(history, culture, technique) related to single products through a series
of seminars that, because of the space made available and the duration of
time, constitute a unique, unrepeatable experience. The meetings, the debates,
the speeches, the conversations, the thousands of stimuli received by so many
and such different people, translate into an ideal journey in space and time,
which culminates in the birth of the project. This itinerary becomes an integral
part of the product in the form of a 'narration', so that when the object
becomes available to the public, it carries within itself the story of its
genesis. Selling the product (hardware) is thus flanked by passing
on a particular knowledge (software): a lamp is not just an object;
it is also knowledge about light and color; it is a form producing sensations
and emotions born from the meeting of ancient traditions with new inventions.
Thus, planning an object in the Workshop signifies investigating this knowledge,
making it one's own, then making it available to all. This 'narration' of
the object is both a source of inspiration and a guide for selecting the concepts
and images of the advertising campaign launching the products created during
the Competition Workshop.