Foscarini - Innovation and Collaboration

Foscarini, Venice - Wedsday, June 15th, 2011

Allegro and Allegretto, 2007 - by Atellier Oi

Foscarini is an innovative lighting company which started out as a small company doing contract lighting in small series using Murano glass. They do not produce any of their own products anymore, which they see as their biggest strength, since it allows them to be flexible and design for the initial idea/concept instead of changing the design to fit the material.

Foscarini only has 4 or 5 in-house designers, and creates collaboration with outside companies and designers for ideas on most new projects. The company aso receives over 3000 spontaneous proposals every year from designers a over the world, but ony ever takes a few of these to the next stage (mock-ups and prototypes). The diversity of Foscarini can be shown by the fact that they have worked with over 30 designers using 20 different materials for their products.

Foscarini aims to makes products which are capable of forming an emotional relationship with their audience. In order to have this affect, they make the products easy to operate by hiding the technology.

Example #1 – Caboche by Patricia Urquiola - 2005

Example #2 - Binic by Ionna Vautrin - 2010

Example # 3 – Aplomb by Paolo Lucidi and Luca Pevere - 2010 (made of concrete)

Example #4 – Official sponsor of Biennale in Venice – 2010

Example # 5 – Foscarini and Moroso both collaborated with Diesel to create their “Successful Living” Collection. Below is the Cage lamp produced by Foscarini for Diesel. Carlo Urbinati and Alessandro Vecchiato, the owners of Foscarini say that “The Diesel collection is for us a new line, deeply different from Foscarini collection in design and style and addressed to new targets.

Example # 5 – Foscarini and Moroso

By Amanda Cox, Laura Van Staveren and Anne Charbonneau

Keywords: Innovation, Business Strategy