Health
The sleep maskInterview with product designer Luisa Kahlfeldt
Interview conducted by Yannah Alfering /
Photos by Peter Wolff
Photos by Peter Wolff
Luisa Kahlfeldt studied product design at Central Saint Martins College in London, earned a master's degree from the renowned ECAL design university in Lausanne, and has worked for designers such as Tom Dixon, Barber & Osgerby, and Konstantin Grcic. The 31-year-old Berliner has now designed a sleep mask for Otto Keller that is not only aesthetically pleasing and functional, but also "different." Our author spoke with her about her work, good design, and her collaboration with Otto Keller.
# How did you get into product design
came?
## Luisa Kahlfeldt
Both my parents are architects. I was practically born into the creative scene and never had to search long for what I wanted to do. I've always been interested in the things we encounter every day. From the moment we wake up – the toothbrush – to the moment we go to bed at night. I can't remember a time when I didn't ask myself: Why does this look like this and not another? It was always something completely natural for me.
# You earned a bachelor's degree in industrial design at Central Saint Martins College in London. What happened next?
## LK
I joined Tom Dixon through an internship and then took on a few freelance jobs for him. After six months, I joined the office of Barber & Osgerby. They're a relatively well-known British design duo who primarily design furniture, but also create a lot of lighting. Their work included the Olympic flame at the 2012 London Olympics. It was a wonderful job; I learned a tremendous amount. The whole London scene was, of course, incredibly exciting. I look back on that time with great fondness, and I'm still deeply inspired.
# Nevertheless, after two and a half years, you decided to quit and pursue a master's degree. Why?
## LK
I was 25 years old and a little… I don't want to say bored, but I wanted to try something different. I've always loved studying design. It's incredibly fun. Actually, even more so than the job itself. Many commercial questions don't come up during your studies. It's a very utopian world that you move in as a student because you can think really big. When I started my Master's at ECAL, I had already been working for three years. I was already in the scene, knew my way around, and felt comfortable. I was ready to take risks and move out of my comfort zone.
# Did your interest in textiles arise at this time?
## LK
Absolutely. As a product designer, you often work with wood, metal, and plastic. You never really get to delve into the raw material. With textiles, you can go a step further and look at the ingredients of your product, which I find really nice. I can start with the fiber, make a yarn from it, and then the fabric. I have much more control. That's how I ended up developing a reusable, washable cloth diaper for babies as my master's project. My goal was to design the most beautiful cloth diaper in the world.
# How did it come about that you went back to Berlin afterwards?
## LK
At that point, I had been living abroad for ten years and was desperate to go back home. My brother and his girlfriend had just gotten pregnant, and my parents lived in Berlin. I was lucky that Konstantin Grcic, a well-known German industrial designer, had just moved his office from Munich to Berlin. The timing was perfect. So I applied and started working for him in 2019. It was an incredibly wonderful experience to work in such a small team for someone who has incredibly great clients and is also an inspiring thinker and visionary.
# You recently took the step into self-employment. How was that for you?
## LK
At the same time, I was already working on my cloth diapers and also implementing many independent projects. That's why this step wasn't so difficult for me. I didn't jump in at the deep end—the projects supported me. I'm now working on various projects and have founded my own company, SUMO, which sells my cloth diapers and hopefully soon other baby products in the textile sector.
# What role does sustainability play in your work?
## LK
It is extremely important to me to be aware of my responsibility as a designer. And that also means asking myself: What does the supply chain look like? Who are the various stakeholders? Where is the material produced? Who sews it? It can no longer just be about a product selling well for the customer. I am not concerned with sustainability in the sense of "Everything has to look green." A product does not necessarily have to look or appear sustainable. For me, good design is design in which everything is considered – the entire lifecycle of a product. Nevertheless, if a company comes to me, I cannot use a material that is 50,000 times more expensive than another. I think that working sustainably and making sustainable decisions is impossible from a designer's perspective alone. You need a good client who is enthusiastic and willing to take risks.
We live in a world that seems to already have everything. How do you even design "well" these days?
## LK
We live in a world with lots of chairs, but also lots of incredibly poorly designed and uncomfortable chairs. I have a lot of colleagues who, especially during design studies, asked themselves: Why are we even doing this? I think that as a designer you have to be naive enough – and I don’t mean to sound arrogant – to think: I can do better. I had the same feeling when Otto Keller asked me to design a sleep mask. My first reaction was: “Oh my God, a sleep mask. There are loads of them.” Living in a world that is constantly changing, that is always evolving and where nothing stagnates also means that there is always potential for improvement in the designed and manufactured environment. Different user groups, different manufacturing methods, different technologies. There is always room for improvement.
# How did the collaboration with Otto Keller go?
## LK
I was just taking a short break in El Salvador when I received a WhatsApp message from my old friend Laszlo. He runs an agency based in Berlin and Porto that connects brands with sustainable manufacturers. He wrote to me that he was currently working with a great client who wanted to expand their product range and create a sleep mask. He was looking for a designer for this. Bringing an external designer on board always brings new perspectives. It's an opportunity to create something truly thoughtful, not just a run-of-the-mill goodie bag product. I replied that it sounded really exciting, and shortly thereafter, I had my first intro call with Otto Keller.
# What was particularly important to you about the collaboration?
## LK
I now try to clearly define my responsibilities as a designer and define my tasks. I often took care of production as well, and that can quickly lead to confusion. As a designer, I can control the design process; that's my time. I'm in control of everything. But as soon as external production is involved, we're all a bit at its mercy. Unfortunately, there are clients who blame the designer if something goes wrong with the production schedule. In this case, there is someone who oversees production in Portugal. A lot of the controls had already been put in place, and I only have to worry about the design. I love projects like that.
# How much time did it take from the idea to the finished product?
I first took two weeks to analyze the market and see what was already available. Two and a half weeks later, I presented my concepts, and we quickly found common ground.
The rough concept has been finalized. The next step is to work with production to determine how we can implement this effectively and which materials are best for the various parts. In September, we'll have the first production sample manufactured in Portugal.
# What was particularly important to you when designing the sleep mask?
## LK
I discovered that the market is oversaturated with products where only the look counts. It seems to be a fashion darling. There are so many sleep masks made of thin material with a funny saying on the front. My absolute favorite was the Hermès sleep mask made of goatskin and silk twill. They look incredibly beautiful, but they definitely lacked functionality. It was important to me to find the balance: The sleep mask should look good, not be too expensive to produce,
but still effective in performance. I also wanted to do something that looked different. The coolest thing would be when you see someone on an airplane with a sleep mask and think, "Oh, that's Otto Keller's." Of course, every designer and every producer tries to do that, but I really hope we can find that balance between something iconic but not silly.
# Which materials are suitable for a sleep mask?
## LK
Mulberry silk is often used in the sleep context. This material is incredibly soft, skin-friendly, and is said to have an anti-aging effect. Since we want to use fair, high-quality materials and produce in Europe, silk was unfortunately immediately out of the running. The end-customer price would simply be too high. So I immediately said: "We're going with lyocell." This is a viscose fiber, made from wood. Viscose has a somewhat bad reputation because its production used to be very unpleasant. A lot has changed in that regard since then. Lyocell, also known as artificial silk, is sustainable, vegan, and yet still has the classic characteristics of silk. So it was clear to me: If Otto Keller wants to, we'll use a combination of organic cotton and lyocell. When choosing material for a sleep mask, it's important that no light gets through. And natural fibers and cotton are great in this regard.
# How do you see the topic of sleep in the design context?
## LK
Sleep is extremely important. The bedroom is very, very private. Not many people see you there. I think we can largely switch off our visual organs. It's more about the question: How does something feel? I think it's an interesting area because it appeals to completely different senses. We humans are visually trained during the day, but in this product area you can use your other organs much more – feel and hear much more. For example, we decided very quickly against Velcro fasteners. On the one hand because long hair gets caught in them, and on the other hand because of the noise. Intuitively, Velcro is the wrong place for a place where you want to relax and like things to be soft.
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