We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Giusi Castaldo ("GC").

Architect and Product Designer, she gets the Master’s Degree in Architecture and architectonic project at the Faculty of architecture “Federico II” in Naples in 2012. In the same year she’s a co-founder of Unisono Produzioni and occupies herself with scenography, location, management and increase in value of space aesthetic for the film project “La Strada di Raffael” by Alessandro Falco. She prepares another scenography “Ingranaggi in musica”, realized at the hamlet of Teverolaccio in Succivo, for the X edition of the Atellana Festival (2012). Since 2013 she has been designing, prototyping and realizing design objects with discarded materials, in particular wood, such as the lamps “Lulù” and “Zeno” and the tables “TQuadro”. These ones are sole pieces realized summing up materials from old carpenter’s shops and wood pieces of boats abandoned along italian coasts, giving life to what can be defined as “creative recycling”. Lulù, Zeno and TQuadro are exhibited at important international design fair as HOMI Fiera Milan Rho, DESIGN CIRCUS in Milan, BRERA Design District and PAN – Palace of Arts in Naples. Thanks to a stage won at the Order of Architects of Naples in 2015, she realizes projects of interior design, graphic and architecture at the Bloomint Design and Prompt Collective in Barcelona, Spain. Her last project is “Little Tu”, a table and applique lamp realized in wood and corian. It originates from the will to conjugate light and nature, life and artifice. A project where creativity becomes sustainable.

Giusi Castaldo Designs

We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Giusi Castaldo.

Designer Interview of Giusi Castaldo:

DI: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?

GC : I have always had a strong passion for art in all its forms. Music, from a small age, helped me to understand what composition was, and during college studies, art and architecture did it. Then cinema and theater ... With the degree in architecture in 2012 and becoming the same year co-founder of Film and Design Association Unisono Produzioni, I felt free to experiment in the design and art in general. I don’t know if I always wanted to be a designer. I certainly know I can’t stop and I want to continue to experiment.

DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?

GC : Unisono Produzioni is a need of free expressions modelled through more languages, with the the intent to unite and put into communication different forms of art and culture. It starts in 2010 in the suburbs of Naples and cooperates with national and international societies such as the case of the co-production for “La Strada di Raffael” by Alessandro Falco, film that gets numerous recognitions such as the Pardino d’Oro at Locarno Film Festival. The cinema of Unisono Produzioni bases itself on sensations born from the need of a documentary vision of the reality, ready to embrace a fiction often essential. Architecture and Design of Unisono thinks to the daily and functionality of objects and spaces. In the Music of Unisono the rests have the same value of the notes. Unisono has the objective to enlarge its own languages of expression and besides the production, it carries out Formation activity aiming to the development of an artistic conscience.

DI: What is "design" for you?

GC : Design for me is awareness. It means having a careful look, trying to solve problems in all areas where it is applied.

DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?

GC : I prefer items where lighting technology is dominant.

DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?

GC : Bruno Munari's "Useless Machines" are the most important work with which he has begun in the futuristic Milanese scene of the 1930s. Munari creates ceiling hanging machines made of lightweight materials (eg balsa wood chopsticks, cardboard sheets painted on both sides, blown glass, elastic steel wires) free to move in space. Each of them, without any constraints on the other elements of the machine, takes part in its rotating movement, independent of direction and speed, to the final composition that can be experienced as an ever-changing kinetic painting. Munari used painting, sculpture, collages, lighting installations, paperwork, and technical experiments to push his artistic research beyond the boundaries.

DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?

GC : A led lamp with wood waste materials.

DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?

GC : With wood I have a strong affinity. But even corian has a good workability.

DI: When do you feel the most creative?

GC : I feel very creative in carpentry laboratories, or in moments of personal criticality.

DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?

GC : Form and ergonomics are the aspects I prefer in the design phase. In the ideative phase, I try to exalt the poetics of the object.

DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?

GC : I completely extricate myself. I'm happy!

DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?

GC : Most of the time I move, but at the same time I have a sense of shaking due to the responsibility towards the project.

DI: What makes a design successful?

GC : When it's innovative, useful, aesthetically attractive, comprehensible and durable over time, then it's a very successful design.

DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?

GC : Firstly I consider its usefulness. Then its compositional design. Then its honesty.

DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?

GC : Design has to contribute to the well-being of humans and the environment. So a good design must be responsible towards society.

DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?

GC : New design will surely depend on technological innovations and their applications. But most importantly, design will go through a social renewal:new ways to use and design objects.

DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?

GC : I exhibited in February 2015 at the "Design Circus" in Milan. I hope I can exhibit "Little Tu" in Scandinavian countries, Denmark.

DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?

GC : Inspiration comes from what surrounds me or what can be useful at that particular moment. I feed books, movies, music and often travelling.

DI: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?

GC : My style is simple but not trivial. Strong attention is devoted to the compositional and structural details, so as to give elegance and essence to the object. The choice of materials that I think is fundamental to design. I often prefer gaps and not full matter. The design must first be poetic.

DI: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?

GC : I live in Naples and I am often grateful to this city for having given me a great deal of strength in knowing how to create it from nothingness, difficulties, and social disadvantages. It influences a lot in my choices, in my projects. But sometimes I miss it. Sometimes you feel lost hope because of the slowness that surrounds you. And then I'm forced to move somewhere else to see my objects made.

DI: How do you work with companies?

GC : Times of Companies often and reluctantly do not respect the designers. But I understand it is a bureaucratic issue.

DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?

GC : I would like Companies and Industries could be more open to young designers. Expectations for both negative and positive responses are too long and sparse.

DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?

GC : Everything begins with a stage of creation. Then in the artisan laboratory begins the experimentation phase of the material, structural, technical and compositive tests. Until we arrive, after countless prototypes, to the definitive project.

DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?

GC : A polaroid. A guitar. My lamp on the bedside table. Another one on my desk. The bulb without lampshade.

DI: Can you describe a day in your life?

GC : Plenty of coffee, mails and news, music! Computer work not only for drawing objects but also for carrying out the projects in the social I realize with the Unisono association I belong to. Every day I devote some hours to drawings, materials and compositions in my small workshop of carpentry. In the late evening I devote myself to music writing and composing songs.

DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?

GC : Good design needs a good deal of courage and confidence.

DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?

GC : You have no limitations on imagination, which can also be a bad thing.

DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?

GC : Be honest with what I'm designing and above all about who I'm doing.

DI: What skills are most important for a designer?

GC : Know how to use pencil.

DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?

GC : Pencil, one meter, small and large squares. Many colors and pens. A good computer, Sketchup, Photoshop, architecture magazines, fiction books, Hindi Zahra, Bon Iver, Miles Davis, Feist...

DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?

GC : Organization is an important key in the design phase. You have to give rhythms and deadlines. As if I were the buyer. It is not long to make choices, plans, and organizations with the craft engineers.

DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?

GC : The design can take a few seconds. The design and construction of the object can often last months or sometimes years. For "Little You", the whole process lasted almost a year. But sometimes it also depends on the object you want to accomplish.

DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?

GC : What do you do in life? Can you live what you think and draw?

DI: What was your most important job experience?

GC : Design and draw "Little Tu". I have learned so many things: the relationship with suppliers, the many difficulties with companies. Encounter technical choices for its realization and material choices. Then to get it a definitive, simple, elegant design, I have to say it was very tough and responsible.

DI: Who are some of your clients?

GC : Retailers who deal with the production and distribution of my products.

DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?

GC : I love designing the relationship between things in space. Draw objects that will relate to their spaces and spaces that will be ready to welcome them. Lately, however, I also have a strong sensitivity to the design of light. Light is a very complex, fascinating phenomenon, it is invisible energy that makes things visible, spaces.

DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?

GC : Recently I started a new phase of deepening Lighting Design. I look forward to much study, work and experimentation.

DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?

GC : I work alone and in team with my Association Unisono Produzioni.

DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?

GC : An illumination!

DI: How can people contact you?

GC : Through Facebook Unison Produzioni; Mail info@unisonoproduzioni.com and visiting the website www.unisonoproduzioni.com

DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?

GC : Behind every little detail there is light.