Athanasios Babalis
Good design is not necessarily expensive.
by Evi Kallini from GLOW magazine
Thanasis Babalis is an industrial designer based in Thessaloniki. After his studies at London Metropolitan University and Royal College of Art, he started his career as a freelancer in London and then worked for seven years in New York, where he worked with companies such as Dimensional Media Associates Inc. and Dakota Jackson Inc. In 2003 he returned to Thessaloniki and founded his own studio. He has taught Furniture / Product design at the state technological educational institutions TEI of Western Macedonia and TEI of Thessaly and, among others, he has been distinguished with the awards: British Standards Institute innovation award (UK, 1996), Green Good Design Award (USA) 2011 and EBGE awards (Greece), 2011.
What inspires you?
The simplicity, usability and honesty of an object is something I value a lot as a product “user” and so I try to replicate that approach in everything I design. But I know that beyond the simplicity of volume/shape, an object must have that “something”, a special element that differentiates it in the market, in order to “conquer” the audience, thus serving the customer’s motivations. The inspiration for this different comes through in-depth research and experimentation and is always the result of a creative dialogue with the wider group of people I work with, in every case.
What is the first object you designed and what was the response from your environment?
The first object I designed – and I can say, that was professional level – was in my 2nd year of undergraduate in London. I designed a very difficult sofa with the aim of solving an ergonomic problem, that of different sizes of people. The sofa had a seat and back that – along its length – changed in size, so that each person could find the right resting place for him. The sofa was made by me and I was very satisfied with the result overall. I then decided to participate in an exhibition in London, where a furniture rental company saw it and was interested in buying it. Since then, the sofa has been featured in various British TV shows and commercials, as well as a prop in films such as “Sliding Doors” starring Gwyneth Paltrow. This response was the “pat on the back” that boosted my confidence and pushed me to continue my studies further, completing postgraduate studies as well.
Tell us a little about your recent projects.
I am very proud that we managed with my clients-partners to distinguish ourselves with first international awards and to “invade” a part of difficult foreign markets, competing with big names and world-renowned companies, proving the power of good cooperation between client-designer-manufacturer . One such collaboration was with the people of the company Ktima Gerovasileiou S.A., for whom in 2010 I designed the Votrys packaging in three sizes, a project – concept in an ecological philosophy – reusing the packaging, the graphic part of which was undertaken by the graphic design studio of Thessaloniki, Red Creative. The packaging was distinguished with the first international Dieline Awards in the packaging category, the first Green Award and excellence from the Ministry of Development, Competitiveness and Shipping. Last year, I was asked to redesign the award-winning packaging for an anniversary edition, Museum Collection.
In 2016, the Anesis company of the Tzevelekidi brothers, asked me to design a chair, which would be part of the new products it would present participating in the international exhibition in Milan in 2017. Our collaboration was flawless and within a time frame of 8-10 months I designed 2 chairs and accompanying furniture (Yolee chair + O collection), which we are all very proud of and the public response seems to be very good!
Another excellent collaboration is with the company PD Hatzigeorgiou – Gruppe. In this context I designed two new products: a small mixer/frappe maker and a multi chopper. The first has just been introduced to the market and the second will be launched very soon. This is an important collaboration for me, because it concerns small products of daily use on a mass production scale. I think, it is every designer’s dream to see their products used by many people, en masse.
Finally, I could not leave out the professional catering products that I have been designing since 2014 for the company Vimitex – Lazaridis G. , which recently concluded as an overall series. These products are aimed at professional users (chefs) and have gradually been presented at many exhibitions inside and outside Greece.