IMM Cologne 2012

At the Pure Village!

We had a great week at Cologne, where Arré was present for the second time. This time in a professional setting at hall 3.2 in the Pure Village programme. Last year Arré was in the background, supporting Mediodesign at the D3 professionals programme, this time a step forward as a brand.

We met lots of interesting people, and we had a great team: Wibo Vermeulen from Amsterdam, Yoraco González from Berlin, Adriana Juncú assisting us with the visitors, and myself.

Great show and great products. We got compliments from trade visitors about the L-shelf designed by Juan Pablo Quintero/Mediodesign, which some people already recognised from last year, and about Insekt desk and Ecke Flow table. One of our major highlights, Metro Chairs designed by Azul Cadenas, never made it to the show… one of the minor things that happened. But we got good response to Insekt Desk, people love it. L-shelf still has to break some kind of resistance of the public, but when people see its simplicity and its genius they are crazy about it. Ecke flow had a very good international debut. German and France clients were quite enthousiast about the work of Michiel van Malestein from Rotterdam.

We are very much in the follow-up now, contacting our leads, and preparing shipment of the orders we took. We had a nice booth and a clear message: here is Arré, designed in Rotterdam, designed in Barcelona, designed in Miami, designed in Berlin.

The general public was really enthousiast about the L-shelf. During the last weekend of the fair, lot of visitors wanted to know where to buy it. How can we make this information clear to all the interested retailers?? We’ll solve that too.

We got some critical remarks from the blogs… surprisingly! 23sqstil was very dissappointed about Arré’s stand. She had followed the company, the work of Yoraco in Berlin, the L-shelf, the new products, etc. She expected more from our show. Well, a critique we take seriously, of course. But for us a kind of recognition that make us smile: we have followers!

We have clients. Clients we meet, we meet again, we retake our conversations, we discuss the next trends, the next steps. We are engaged in new proposals, new businesses. We chatted with the press, we explained our work as a new kind og agency to young professionals at the D3… and surprise, some want to be the next one at Arré.

A nice show, a great place to meet the world, to show our work. We are still working hard, demanding the best quality in what we do. Follow up time now!!!

IMM Cologne 2012, already a good start!

We are preparing a good and solid show for january 2012, when we will be back at Cologne for the international furniture fair. Among the things that we have done was to send Mediodesign’s product L-shelf system to competition for the Interior Innovation Award, an award organised by the German Design Council.

Did we really get surprised this week when we heard that L-shelf was among the winners? Well, yes, a little bit. But we were confident that Juan Pablo Quintero’s brainchild had everything to get through to the final rounds. So far, L-shelf, launched by Arré and designed by Mediodesign, has won its first award. It its still competing for the «best of the best 2012» award, due for final award ceremony on january 16th 2012.

Of course, this will give Arré the opportunity to show L-shelf twice at IMM Cologne, at our own booth and at the innovation boulevard. Already a good start!

Blickfang Vienna

Last weekend Mediodesign presented its collection at Blickfang Vienna, on a special invitation by curator Andrés Fredes.

We had a lot of feedback from Blickfang visitors, other exhibitors and the curator team. Most important, Vienna’s public was enthousiast about Mediodesign’s products.

Juan Pablo Quintero, Adriana Juncu and myself were present at the MAK Museum, a great venue by the way.

We could close some sales with private clients, and we were able to initiate conversations with retailers and distributors in Austria and Germany. We met some good designers we already met during IMM Cologne! we are now part of that world too…

We are expecting some follow-up from this, as we made contact with many private clients whom meant to contact us in the next weeks. Well, don’t forget to do it! We’ll hold the special prices of Blickfang Vienna for a limited time!

Going east: Turkey and Hong Kong

Good products and good work goes everywhere. We have invested in promotion, exposure, working the press and contacts to let the products of Mediodesign and the works of Yoraco González have the attention they deserve. So, when we got requests from Hong Kong for an Elephant chair, and request from Istambul for a press kit regarding Yoraco, we were surprised and happy.

Elephant Lounge chair was promtly delivered to a private client in Hong Kong, via air freight, and a press kit was assembled for the magazine Maicon Française Turkey, which were delighted with the work of Yoraco at Hüttenpalast.

So we are going east, as it should be.

The road to manufacturing

Arré is now dealing with the challenge of setting up mass manufacturing for some products of Medio. As agent and partner of our designers, we take every opportunity seriously. When a large retailer in Germany asked for volume production, we decided to take a look at the opportunity and research the possibilities.

So far, we are stepping up our work, developing this business from Rotterdam. We are dealing with suppliers, package design, import/export issues, logistics, licenses, patents, royalties, finance. At Arré, we consider this our work at that  is what we are willing to do when our designers and their products need to meet the demands of the market.

What can happen? we have many scenarios at the moment, but we are sure that our product will be soon available at many, many outlets in Germany, the starting point of a wonderful idea.

So, we are fine, supporting excellent design.

New retailer in Germany: Möbel Mock

Website of Moebel Mock

The family Mock has been a established name in furniture making and design since many years. Dad Möck a master furniture maker, his wife taking care of business and retail shop, their daughters Regina and Julia doing management and interior design. A good strong business in Laupheim.

Julia visit us at the Cologne fair and was charmed by our collection. She has a degree in design from Pratt institute New York, where she met our friend Camila Crazut.

Elephant chair is going to be in the showroom of Möbel Mock very soon, in what it should be the start of a nice relation between Mock, Medio and Arré.

SerieZ looking at Medio

still making waves

Another interesting blog from Barcelona is looking at mediodesign’s collection with good eyes. They like Juan Pablo Quintero approach and have somehow summarized the key features of the collection. «Metáforas de la complementaridad» a rather complicated sentence, but still attractive for the people at SerieZ.

A new retailer: Combo Kasten in Den Bosch, NL

Combo Kasten is a shop specialised in closets, book shelves, shelf system and accessoires for closets and shelves. Their specialisation and their dedication to customers make the unique selling point of Combo Kasten.

They will be carrying the L-shelf in their collection, to test the waters and see what is the impact of having the L-shelf system in their shop. We are please to have place Mediodesign again in another shop in the Netherlands. We wish success to Combo Kasten and the L-shelf in the beautiful city of  ‘s-Hertogenbosch!

But for now, quote has been sent, confirmation is due, and the showroom model will be shipped to  Den Bosch very soon.  let’s get that showroom model in place!

Moving on! …and in different languages

Well, it seems quiet and peaceful. No news in the last couple of weeks. Nothing of that!

Mediodesign’s catalogues are now available in german, danish and english. Price lists have been sent to many retailers and architects that we met in Cologne. Calls have been made, with positive results. Samples of Mediodesign’s collection have been sent to Milan, to one important potential client. Conversations and deals have been initiated.

And at the website of Mediodesign, people are starting to request quotes, information and products. Almost like: «I want my elephant chair please». Interesting.

On the other end, Berlin, mister González is doing the finishing touches of his work at Huttenpalast. He’s almost fully booked until june, so get a number for the second half of the year if you want Büro Internacional to design and furnish your shop.

Quiet? Maybe, but really busy!

Trendsetters?

We got a request from a trendwatchers bureau in Germany to use pictures of the elephant chair in their latest rapport book.

Is mediodesign a trendsetter? We don’t know yet, and perhaps that is not important. As long as we do our job the best way possible, we are satisfied. That’s the philosophy we recall from our conversations with Mediodesign’s team.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting request, a reminder of the unknown impact of what we are doing. We’ll keep the work of Trend büro on check to see what part is mediodesign, Juan Pablo Quintero and Elephant chair playing in the trends of the future.