Luxury Product Design with Vittorio Pieroni
By: Federico Francioni
Tags: Innovation, Design, Luxury, Creativity, Life Stories

We promised the most unconventional design-ERS, and we’re doing our best to deliver. Raise your hand if you’ve ever designer a yacht or a motorhome like the ones below. No? Well, this is opportunity to learn something more about it, and apply it to your creative environment.

Photo by Marcin Ciszewski on Unsplash

The STX eila edition one designed by Vittorio Pieroni

As always, we recapped the main passage below, but you can watch the whole episode above or listen to it using the links at the bottom of the article. Ok, enough into, let’s dive into it!

Technology, Prototyping and Agile Delivery

The world of Motorhomes and Yacht is surprisingly pretty “conservative” when it comes to tech innovation. If you think that something like wireless charging would be an easy thing to implement, well it’s not the case and Vittorio explained us why.

Prototyping is a totally different beast, especially when it comes to interior. Digital tools can help, but nothing beats a mockup built in small rooms to test. Especially when it comes to ergonomic.

This translate also to the agile approach to development, in fact the deployment time for a yacht or motorhome takes 1–2 years. That means being flexible in concepting is a must, but also knowing that on the supplier side there might be delays or material shortages that might totally derail your timeline.

The Importance of Client Relationship

Scheduling and delivery is secondary, because clients change ideas almost daily, and it’s very difficult to keep up.

“Dealing with Clients is absolutely the hardest part of the job, at the end of the day you’re creating something totally bespoke to follow their dreams, not yours”

All it takes is for one of these extremely wealthy and demanding personalities to see something that they like at their friends’ house or yacht and immediately send a text saying “I loved this [insert unexpected and unplanned feature here, can we get something similar but better?”.

Well, I guess that is something that can be easily translated into the life of every designer, no matter what we do.

One Big Mistake to Be Proud Of

One day Vittorio sent an update to one of his clients. Well, not really. He accidentally sent out the same version that has been previously shared.

The result? Surprisingly (or maybe not?) the client said “We love the changes you made!”

Our Signature Question: What is the Definition of Design?

Going back to the theme of flexibility Vittorio mentioned, he said:

Design is a process made of compromises: you have to balance the aesthetic dreams with the constraints of reality

And guess what? Building yacht and motorhomes still comes with a BUDGET, so no matter what you’re designing for… boundaries are always there!

One More Thing: Don’t Ever Forget Your Craft

Yes, you’re building your clients dream vehicle. But your way of building it, your creativity, is what will make you successful. Always bring your ideas not only in your portfolio, but in your initial.

Next step for Vittorio? What about a Private Jet? Listen to the episode to know more!