in the Fall of 2012, molo co-founder Stephanie Forsythe was honoured to be the keynote speaker for the Women in Design for Denver Design Week. Prior to the event, writer Sarah Goldblatt caught up with Stephanie to glean insights on the her creative process, and unique perspective on Design.
while the whole interview adds new layers to the molo story, here are three snippets from the Q&A that we found extra interesting (find the link to the full interview below).
Sarah Goldblatt: Describe the meaning of your firm’s name molo and how it describes the range of work that you do.
Stephanie Forsythe: The name molo is an acronym for “middle ones little ones.” My partner Todd and I are architects and when we first formed molo, to put some of the furniture and smaller functional items we design into production, we recognized that many of the design concepts and considerations for our smaller scaled work are the same as our work at an architectural scale.
for example when designing a tea set we were thinking of how the quality of light from the candle forms a space, and along with the warmth, scent and beautiful ritual of steeping and sharing tea, it becomes a center for people to gather around. And so the name molo derives from this idea of space making with smaller tactile objects as well as a more traditional “architectural scale.”
a nice coincidence is that in Spanish and Japanese “molo” is a sort of slang word meaning “cool little things.”
Sarah Goldblatt: Do you have clients for your projects? Or are you generating new ideas independent of clients? What inspires your designs?
Stephanie Forsythe: Primarily, we design things for ourselves, following our intuition and when we feel we have something good, we offer it to the rest of the world. We really like working this way, it allows us to take as long as we need to refine something or to work on very open ended material research and experiments or to completely change directions if the process of working a material leads to something unexpected and inspiring, … Currently we are working on a modest sized off grid house, the first one is for us but we think this will lead to something that we can offer to others.
we are inspired by the physical sensory world around us and we seek to enhance delight in everyday rituals. With people spending so much time at their computers, it is important to reconnect with our physical environment.
read the full article here
learn more about molo’s design process here
explore molo’s full collection here
