Yves Behar Quotes

I’ve been influenced by some of the greatest designers. Charles Eames. And Bruno Munari in the ’50s in Italy – when they had to retool the industry of war into an industry to help society. In a way, I’m influenced by designers that were there at a radical time of change.

Fuseproject was founded in 1999, and the notion behind it, which is alive and kicking today, is fusing different disciplines. Our teams are absolutely incredible at their own discipline, but most importantly, they’re incredible at partnering with each other.

Integrating breakthrough technology into everyday products is always a challenge; at the same time, this is exactly how design makes tech products easily adoptable in life.

When I first came to the Bay area, I worked in Silicon Valley in the early to mid-’90s, and I think what mattered then was our ability as designers to create a vision around people’s ideas.

I wanted to be a writer as a teen… so storytelling was my first love. In my late teens, design became an obsession as I realized that I could express myself through the medium. Much later, when I founded Fuseproject in 1999, our slogan became ‘design brings stories to life.’

Design is a tool that either allows us to create new markets or disrupt existing ones.

What got me really excited about Tylko is the fact that it bridges the gap between tradition and technology. It expands the designer’s ability to create a language, to create ideas, to create a set of proportions, a set of details, and to apply those across a really wide range of applications.

Design accelerates the adoption of new ideas. And many of these ideas are important for designers to show that there is a way. When you see things through that lens, you realize it applies to any industry and any form of design.

Design certainly has a cosmetic, aesthetic aim. It always aims at making things beautiful. But relevance is just as important. I often say, ‘If it isn’t ethical, it can’t be beautiful. But if it isn’t beautiful, it probably shouldn’t be at all.’

Sometimes you can find peace of mind by transferring yourself to different situations. They’re just reminders to stay… calm.

I imagine a future with no waste; material innovations have already become exponentially more vast, and I do think the future needs to be cradle to cradle. If designed properly, one product could be used for many years before needing to be recycled, or its components reused.

Advertising is the price companies pay for being unoriginal.

Our principal role as designers is to accelerate new ideas and the adoption of new ideas.

The best design work is really done when you spend more time with people, when you have the opportunity to be of the same mindset and the same incentives as the founder of the business.

Part of my life is spent designing in urban centers, and part of my life has been spent in factories. But the other part of my life is spent in nature.

For me, it’s not about being the best designer. I’m interested in being the best partner. The best collaborator.

I have been working with Hive, part of British Gas, on reinventing the thermostat. Now you can control your heating at the press of a button on your phone. As I say, design should permeate every part of society.

Everything has yet to be invented. I never say ‘green’ – I say ‘greener.’ It’s greener simply because this is a continuum of change, improvement and discovery.

Juicero is the first company to make cold-pressed juice something that people can make themselves at home. The challenges to design and engineer a press that can deliver 8,000 pounds of force are tremendous.

It’s not about putting a speaker in a chair or putting a TV in a bed. That’s not how technology and the home intersect. For me, it’s about sensors, about the home knowing where you are.

Keyless entry in a car is something that we’re used to. Somehow, the home has been very resistant to this. Some of it has to do with security, but today we know that technology, when things are invisible, is actually safer than physical artifacts.

Steve Jobs changed my life. He also changed the life of every designer.

The idea of designing something that is like something else is incredibly uninteresting and boring.

When clients come to my design agency and say ‘I want to be the Apple of this or that,’ we say ‘Okay, are you ready to be the Steve Jobs?’ Few are up to the task.

I think every business, really, has a unique reason for being, unique assets, unique attributes, a unique history. And that can be turned into a very attractive design story, essentially, that consumers can relate to.

My mantra is: ‘Good design accelerates the adoption of new ideas.’

Every tech product on the body like Jawbone or in the home like August is different. But there are definitely principles that apply across the board for me, such as integration in everyday life and discretion.

Kodak has always represented innovation that is approachable while delivering the craft of filmmaking.

The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed – and truly delightful – to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff.

I never felt truly at home in Switzerland.