Thingking
Thinking is something that Lyall Sprong and Marc Nicolson do really well at Thingking. Thingking is a designer-maker consultancy founded in March 2010 and based at Side Street Studios, with a showroom at the Woodstock Exchange. Lyall and Mark run Thingking where they work in things and ideas of expression and problem solving. Their aim is to create work that increasingly reflects a deeper sense of place and understanding. Their company overview is about rigorous thought, making things, representing ideas or objects and researching. Essentially it’s about two guys who really enjoy what they do: making and representing really cool ideas.
Marc (left) and Lyall (right)
They are both graduates of CPUT Department of Industrial Design and they both recycle. They define creative success as assimilating good ideologies and finding a way to live by them. They recently enjoyed their own success at the Design Indaba earlier this year where they won the award for most creative stand. The award celebrates creativity and innovation and encourages exhibitors to go the extra mile in creating their stands. Their stand at this year’s Design Indaba drew crowds throughout the three-day event.
Thingking stand at Design Indaba 2013
Expo manager Kelly Berman said: “Thingking was selected for how playfully it showcased the design studio’s process-driven approach. Sprong and Nicolson had a number of their innovative designs on display, including their standing strip lights and metal plant holders.” They also created some new works especially for Expo, including their Thingking sign that operates by pulling a lever to a light made out of tinfoil and wood. “The crowds responded with so much curiosity, packing their stand to see how all their designs worked,” Berman added
Their award won them a 6 square meter stand at Design Indaba Expo 2014. Check out their stand at the Design Indaba below
Outside of the Design Indaba they have done some pretty neat work too. Things that include a Magic pancake assist, floating vending machines and a moving stethoscope ad.
Their Magic Pancake assist is intended for kids who want to make a pancake without the help of their mothers. In addition to the kids getting a pancake they also get educated as to the origin of the ingredients. Its not entirely automated so the kids still have to earn their pancakes.
They helped Lipton Ice Tea with a refreshing marketing campaign in the form of floating and heat detecting vending machines. These Lipton Ice Tea installations created a memorable experience for the consumer that is greater than the product, but is associated to the product. It is a great way of engaging consumers and getting them to interact with the brand. This type of thing really makes me look forward to summer. Check out their campaign and have a look at the worlds first floating vending machine.
The guys at ThingKing also have a conscience and are not necessarily just about selling products. This is a really moving piece about the need for doctors in Africa.
This is a short 20 Questions interview that the guys from Thingking did with Design Indaba back in 2011.
1. What items would you put into a time capsule?
Marc: Would collect all well-made toys from as far back as possible.
2. If you were told that you had to live inside a work of art, which would you choose?
Marc: Probably MC Escher’s Metamorphosis.
Lyall: Did Turner ever paint a desert landscape?
3. How do you define creative success?
Assimilating good ideologies and finding a way to live by them.
4. What makes you laugh out loud?
Aiden Bennets’s cardboard cutouts of himself.
5. How old were you when you made your first design and what was it?
Marc: When I was six or seven I designed boots that could transport me up very steep mountains. They had wheels and spikes and I drew them on post-its that I put above my desk which I called my workshop.
6. Are there certain characteristics that all creatives possess?
They are usually humans
7. What is the question you ask yourself the most?
What are we really trying to say?
8. What is something that you have learnt in the past five years?
Lyall: How wrong I can be.
9. In your subjective view, what makes a piece of design good?
Good design is incredibly soft. It is the guy that turns the bucket upside down to make a seat. It comes from a personal experience, pointing to a possibility that is made up of all the really meaningful, fearless stuff. It doesn’t get much media attention
10. What do you do on Sundays?
Marc: Family time, try get onto the mountain.
11. Who in the world, dead or alive, would you most like to have a drink with?
Steiner.
12. Do you have a creative/business muse?
Marc: No.
Lyall: In the past it was always my mother.
13. What’s the best design advice you’ve ever received?
Lyall: Ask yourself: What is this thing really about?
Marc: Work very hard.
14. How do you deal with failure?
It doesnt ever really feel like failure.
15. Which qualities do you most admire in others?
Elasticity and patience. We both like people that don’t bullshit themselves, so I suppose honesty?
16. How do you know when a piece of design is complete?
When it no longer exists in the physical or imagined world, otherwise it is always evolving or causing some kind of ripple.
17. What is something you know you do differently to most people?
Lyall: I am immature and idealistic.
18. What has been your favourite project to date?
The plastic prayer fence mobiles in Khayelitsha at Velokhaya which we are currently completing
19. Do you recycle?
Yes.
20. Can design save the world?
The world will be fine, humanity needs something much deeper than design. Design is but a useful tool.
…………………………..
Thanks to Design Indaba for the interview.
These guys are doing some really inspiring work and I am really looking forward to seeing their stand at the Design Indaba 2014. In Cape Town, the world design capital 2014.
Here is some more work of the Thingking duo:
The Halo Light
Making the Halo Light
Halo Lights in action
Waste PVC table
Euco Bench
Bracket Light
Bucket Seat
Red Bull did a similar thing by creating The Athlete Machine, just a large scale version of what Thingking did at Design Indaba. With Red Bull Athletes of course.
Related articles
- The changing South African consumer: our cultural coming of age (thenetworkoneafrica.wordpress.com)
- Yawn for This Vending Machine and It’ll Give You a Cup of Coffee (thedenveregotist.com)
- Fill a beer glass with nothing more than your mind (agbeat.com)
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