The wonderful madness behind KNS Design Collective.

SCV: Was that your goal in forming the collective?

NN: We really want to find women artists that we believe in, because true artists just want to work on something interesting and share it with others. We want to help form a stronger community, and I think that’s one of the things that’s coming out of the economic crisis. People are sharing more and creating stronger communities, and we love being exposed to new viewpoints and perspectives, and ideas we may not have known about otherwise.

KG: And of course, we want to share our vision! Everything we make has a sense of humor, and it’s so exciting for us to have someone use it and see them get it. We love helping someone create an experience, a memory.

SCV: What are some of the trends in the design market now?

KG: People are really feeling crushed by the economy, but I think soon a lot of new ideas will come out and people will say ‘fuck it!’ and just do the designs they want to. Right now companies are being safe and pushing safe products and the market’s getting boring. But I think that soon, new designs are going to break out and larger companies will have to pay attention.

NN: There’s just a bigger filter right now, it’s all about safety. But at the same time, the singer Pharrell Williams worked with artist Takeshi Murakami to create a series called “Simple Things.” It was a collection of everyday items like Johnson and Johnson bottles and Coca-Cola cans, but they were encrusted with diamonds. The idea was that these are the simple things in life and we should appreciate them, which I agree with, but the diamond thing? I don’t know… But at any rate, there was a huge bidding war, so there’s definitely a trend starting where people want more unusual and original things despite the market. But the products that make it are few and far between, and of course it’s much easier when you have big names like Pharrell and Murakami attached to the project.

SCV: So do you think the economic crisis will make people try new things, in the long run?

KG: Larger companies will follow soon enough. Right now they’re doing basics, nothing edgy, trying to play it safe. You see so many shops out of business now, but maybe that’ll give way to new concepts and new opportunities.

NN: It’s human nature. If you’re being suffocated, then after a certain point it gets intolerable and you’ll come up gasping for air. Artists flourish when there are big changes in society. We have to be more creative to work with all these new constrictions.

KG: We’ve been working on how to cut our production costs. Maybe before, we were mostly creating one-offs available at specific boutiques, but now we’re thinking of how to make things out of paper, or recycled material, things that are more cost-effective so we can sell them. It kind of gives you a new perspective and a new challenge.

NN: There’s been a lot of great grassroots movement too because of the economy. Schools are doing their own things, there are small artists’ clubs forming, there’s a huge independent movement for art and design, and it creates such a great sense of community. It makes you feel like you want to create even more and better things because you’re not only doing it for yourself, you’re doing it to make the community stronger.

SCV: It seems like everything you do has such a strong social aspect to it.

NN: Yes! All of our pieces are about interacting with people and objects. Right now we’re working on a new piece called Body Terrain, and it’s about how water navigates itself through land and creates these cool shapes, and we want to relate it to the body. The pieces are a flexible black resin, and they sit flush with the body, and they’ll be different for each wearer.

KG: They’re sort of like under-jewelry, they look like ink and the sit under your shirt. It’s such a fun process, and whoever is interacting or engaging with the piece changes the form and makes each one different. It’s like the Tableclothes; the experience changes with each user.

NN: Or like our Wax Mountain, that builds up differently depending on who’s using it and where the place the candles. It’s all about the ability to engage with the people around you and with society and the earth, changing awareness and making you think.

KNS DESIGN COLLECTIVE.