Mr Frey, designing a bathroom collection was uncharted creative territory for you. How did you approach this task?

Ceramic was a new mate­r­ial for me as I had never really worked with it before. So I first delved deeper into the sub­ject of “ceram­ics”. I took part in a work­shop and gained an insight into the man­u­fac­tur­ing process at Villeroy & Boch. I was amazed by the pre­ci­sion and com­plex­ity of the pro­duc­tion. Sim­ply how time-con­sum­ing it is to pro­duce the forms and how the ceram­ics shrink dur­ing the fir­ing process. All that needs to be con­sid­ered when you are devel­op­ing a design to make sure you cre­ate a com­pelling col­lec­tion.  

Where do you get your inspiration from?

I go to trade fairs to get some cre­ative input. That does­n’t just mean repli­cat­ing what you see, but also tak­ing it fur­ther, cre­at­ing your own thing. I also keep in con­tact with col­leagues and dis­cuss inno­v­a­tive con­cepts and ideas with them. And nat­u­rally inspi­ra­tion from music, art and life per se also flows into my designs. 

Which challenges did you face in developing the Finion collection?

It was quite com­pli­cated to develop Fin­ion, which comes with about 20 ceramic prod­ucts and fur­ni­ture. I cre­ated a free con­cept, based on asso­ci­a­tions with the bath­room and the role it plays in our home and life. Sounds and images, but also the moods and needs of the users. 

How did you transfer that to the products?

I’m a fur­ni­ture designer by nature and nor­mally work with warmer, softer mate­ri­als such as wood, leather and fab­ric. Ceramic, on the other hand, is very hard and smooth and looks cool very quickly – an effect I did­n’t want to have in my bath­room col­lec­tion. So the real chal­lenge was to cre­ate cosi­ness and a feel­ing of soft­ness and warmth even with ceramic. 

How did you solve that?

I cre­ated soft tran­si­tions and devel­oped a flow­ing design with strong con­tours for the wash­basins. To do so, I laid a cloth over the form and trans­ferred the sil­hou­ette of the flow­ing fab­ric to the ceramic. This allowed me to take full advan­tage of the TitanCe­ram mate­r­ial as it enabled me to develop very thin fine forms.  

And how did you “create warmth”?

Mainly with the fur­ni­ture. Warm shades are at the fore, with splashes of gold to add the right touch. I can’t wait to see how experts and con­sumers are going to react to Fin­ion. 

Here you will find fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Patrick Frey and Villeroy & Boch.