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Interview with Konstantin Achkov for LOCK |
Home > Designer Interviews > Konstantin Achkov for LOCK |
Editor Frank Scott (FS) from DesignPRWire has interviewed designer Konstantin Achkov for LOCK (KAFL) for A’ Design Award and Competition. You can access the full profile of Konstantin Achkov for LOCK by clicking here.
FS: 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?
KAFL: From a young age I loved to draw and model. I grew up around my father who illustrated books and print publications. So not only the predispositions in me, but also the environment shaped me. I remember that I always admired design and was strongly drawn to being able to one day invent objects and forms.
FS: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
KAFL: After building my own brand Lock furniture, I have now focused on Konstantin Achkov studio, where I develop sculptures with functions or the so-called collectible furniture.
FS: What is "design" for you?
KAFL: Well thought out objects from our immediate surrounding world.
FS: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
KAFL: My passion for furniture and accessories as design challenges has always been great!
FS: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
KAFL: The thing I like most is the design challenge called a chair. I never get tired of this thread. The chair is a rather curious object to design and has a more special relationship with its user, because it is one of the few that we do not walk around, but try with our bodies.
FS: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
KAFL: It was in my student years an interior for an Italian restaurant with specially made details and lighting fixtures. Unfortunately it no longer exists.
FS: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
KAFL: Any material, technology or platform that allows me to sensibly realize my ideas in material. Over the years I have mostly worked with different types of metals and woods and have developed a kind of bond and trust in them.
FS: When do you feel the most creative?
KAFL: When I get an idea and see that it makes sense. Then there is a powerful impulse to develop this idea in different variations, and other ideas begin to appear.
FS: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
KAFL: For the subject to be smart as assemblies, the making of the details and how the overall product will be assembled. The ergonomic dimensions should not be at the expense of the idea, but should fit harmoniously into the shape.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
KAFL: Any kind! From high spirits and overexcitement when things work out for me to getting angry and sometimes tearing, crumpling or breaking a model or detail that I see doesn't work. In a word, stormy emotions in their full aspect.
FS: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
KAFL: Naturally satisfaction that I have not wasted my time, but have created something that begins its life.
FS: What makes a design successful?
KAFL: Maybe it will meet its audience and be recognized by different people as its subject status.
FS: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
KAFL: I always try to be professionally objective. I look at the idea or ideas that are the stake, whether they are original and well thought out constructively. Is there an opportunity for the given material idea to develop into something else like a series or family. How surprisingly the idea is presented and how innovative it is compared to such things.
FS: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
KAFL: The designer, like any creator, has the responsibility to shape aesthetic tastes in society. But it also has the additional requirement of making life easier by inventing more understandable, more convenient, more simplified and more intriguing household objects. In recent years, design has also been charged with social concern for environmental protection.
FS: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
KAFL: I think it will inevitably become more ecological by any means. Not just things made from recycled plastic or other types of recycled materials. For example, I have been working for many years on the topic of flat-pack furniture that can be easily assembled and has much cheaper transport. Shopping for furniture online and shipping it long distances will make flat packing almost mandatory. Other developments that I like is the increasing move towards pure sculpture and handicrafts.
FS: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
KAFL: My last exhibition was in 2024. In Brera, Milan, as part of Milan design week where I showed my new furniture family "Console". I think about the next one when I'm ready with the things I'm doing now to show them. I haven't decided where yet.
FS: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
KAFL: Inspiration always comes spontaneously and from many different places. Human fantasy is a rather mystical thing, and once seemingly banal things are an impulse for creativity. I sustain my creativity with immense curiosity in countless directions. I am insatiable for knowledge on topics that excite me.
FS: 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?
KAFL: Engineering and artistic. Perhaps a mixture of pragmatically technological elements and assemblies together with sculptural forms, that give a characteristic overall volume. What makes me work in this way is the curiosity of how I can combine these different directions in one form. My approach is to make multi-layered compositions of different elements in common synchrony.
FS: 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?
KAFL: I was born and live in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. My hometown was founded by the ancient Thracians and then developed by the Roman Empire as a large fortified city. It was then part of the Turkish Empire. One of the reasons is that warm mineral water springs in its center to this day. This cultural layering from ancient Roman remains to modern buildings gives a cultural richness that inevitably influences me.
FS: How do you work with companies?
KAFL: Difficult when there is no understanding on the other side! That is why I have founded my own brands over the years.
FS: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
KAFL: To listen carefully to them! Still, these are creatives with unconventional thinking, and sometimes it takes cultural preparation, time, effort and patience to get a good result.
FS: Can you talk a little about your design process?
KAFL: I design in several phases. At first, when the idea came to me, I developed a very large number of sketches. There I look for optimal shape, joints and silhouette. When I judge that an object is well explained in the sketches, I move on to drawing and making a model or models in 1:5 scale. In this way, I quickly and easily check the strength of the individual elements working as a whole. The drawing and impact of the volumes, as well as the ergonomic dimensions. Everything is then drawn and refined on the Solid program and moved to 1:1 scale prototyping.
FS: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
KAFL: Perhaps I will say trivially: my smart phone, desktop computer, music system, kettle for heating water, remote control of the TV.
FS: Can you describe a day in your life?
KAFL: I couldn't! Every day is different.
FS: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
KAFL: To accept the truth that there were great authors before them and there will be others after them.
FS: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
KAFL: The positive is that you leave behind artifacts that describe you as an author. The negative is that this is perhaps one of the most difficult professions, where you have to combine incompatible things like an engineer and an artist in one person. That's why he wants full dedication!
FS: What is your "golden rule" in design?
KAFL: To give even the most banal object something original and artistic.
FS: What skills are most important for a designer?
KAFL: To observe, to draw conclusions from each process whether it is successful or not. But above all, have patience and will.
FS: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
KAFL: I use all kinds of tools that help me realize my ideas. Even non-standard things. My workplace is often a creative house. I must always have a pencil, A4 paper, scale measuring line, model knife and cardboard with me.
FS: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
KAFL: I always make strict plans and schedules and always real life and the crafting process messes them up.
FS: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
KAFL: If I knew the answer to this creative process, I might be playing the lottery regularly.
FS: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
KAFL: "How did you come up with that?"
FS: What was your most important job experience?
KAFL: Dealing with different things from different materials and technologies. I think that watching and participating by helping when subcontractors do something on my projects helps me a lot.
FS: Who are some of your clients?
KAFL: Probably smart people with taste!
FS: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
KAFL: Each in which clear parameters are set.
FS: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
KAFL: Whatever my past plans have been. All related to making my works.
FS: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
KAFL: It always has to. Most of the time it is a challenge. But also good support.
FS: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
KAFL: I am currently developing a continuation of the "Console" furniture family, focusing on asymmetry. "Console - asymmetrical".
FS: How can people contact you?
KAFL: konstantinachkov(Amin)gmail(point)com
FS: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
KAFL: I think I said a lot in so many questions!
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A’ Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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