Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 44
Occupation: Designer and art director.
Instagram: @serenaconfalonieri
Hometown: Vimercate, Italy.
Studio location: Milan.
Describe what you make: I work in the fields of product, interior, graphic, and textile design, collaborating with companies and artisans of excellence both in Italy and abroad. My style is built around a graphic, colorful, and emotional vision, mixed with decorative hyperboles and geometric shapes. Unexpected subjects, chromatic and material combinations, together with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic inspirations, give life to projects where design is given an ironic twist and, vice versa, playfulness is at the root of the project.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: Quadra is a graphic art project for the enhancement and characterization of tactical urbanism interventions in specific areas of Milan. It’s part of the redevelopment of a former parking lot in Via Val Lagarina in collaboration with the Milanese association WAU. This initiative aims to create a recreational space open to everyone, inspired by both an educational and playful concept: a graphic subdivision of the lot through a grid that recalls the sheets of squared notebooks, hence the title. This grid was decorated using primary colors and simple geometric shapes as a starting point. These are the signs and tones that children learn and draw in the pages of their school notebooks.
Describe the problem your work solves: My main goal is to design objects of affection, which are able to generate positive feelings and a sense of attachment that make them stand out from the large amount of objects we’re surrounded by in our everyday life.
Describe the project you are working on now: New pieces of my self-produced collection of glasses, Calypso, which are inspired by art nouveau aesthetics and resembling flowers in bloom. I’m also working on a collection of lamps and floor surfaces.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: Quadra, with a mural on the surface of the school building adjacent to the square. This graphic project has been designed after a workshop where students suggested ideas and explained the way they live in the neighborhood. The square will soon be repainted and the tactical urbanism work will become permanent.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: I work in a shared loft with architects, designers, and illustrators. I love exchanging ideas and opinions with different professionals.
What you do when you’re not working: Playing tennis, watching old and independent movies, relaxing with my dogs Fausto and Otto, and cross stitching.
Sources of creative envy: Hella Jongerius, Anni Albers, Joana Vasconcelos.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Compulsive scrolling of any app and junk TV.
Concrete or marble? Colored concrete.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse.
Remember or forget? Remember.
Aliens or ghosts? Aliens.
Dark or light? Light.
Portrait by .
