Interview with Rok Jenko

As a young student he received his first national design recognition, the Bio Award, granted by the international Biennale of Industrial Design in Ljubljana, for designing a kitchen accessory - knife. Encouraged by this recognition, some ten years ago, he set up his own design company together with a group of his fellow students. Two years later, he finished his bachelor studies with top degree, for a design project which attracted a lot of public attention – ‘Kitchen in the Year 2025’. In the period of the past six years, working as a member of design team at Design Centre Gorenje, he has participated in most projects of designing the Gorenje household appliances. In addition to his obligations at Gorenje he is currently conducting a Master’s research in Industrial Design Management.

Creation in my case is a period of a complete crisis to a period of total euphoria, when I draw tens of sketches. Sometimes, I create several fantastic solutions in a single day, and then none for a whole week. And later, when I resume my work on those fantastic solutions, I immediately throw all of them away, because I find them useless. I often have that feeling of being limited with formal working time. I feel bad if I am fifteen minutes late for work. But then I think to myself that my job does not last only eight hours a day, as I carry my work and the ideas during my free time, when I eat, read or sleep. In one word, through out all day. A creative process is something that lasts all the time and also has a protective function of self-control, when you really validate your work and you are the first filter to yourself.

When those three months, of purely creative work were over, I sat down together with the development team project managers from Marketing, Development and Technology departments, in accordance with the »concurrent engineering« principle, and we made a first  short list of five solutions. Then, the decision makers, a top internal jury, had their turn. This jury was the supervisory board of the project, consisted of eight leading experts and managers from Gorenje. They chose three final solutions which were actually, two plus one spare solution.

As I said the creative process took three months. After six months, we made a short list of three appliances, made as models in natural size, and then one was selected to be worked on. When the winner was chosen we entered a stage of freezing, which means there is no way back. Our decision was made, we chose this specific design. Many people at this point think that our work, the work of designers is done. But the truth is, we are only half way to the end. From this point other professionals get involved and we start to work on the details. Different departments from technology to mechanics, including us, work hand in hand with each other until we finally realize the design idea as a real product. At this point I often hear people saying: “You designers are artists”. But a designer is everything else first but an artist! I must say once again that the whole process includes the period from the creative idea to the final product and the designer must do and know everything. We work by the principal of the concurrent engineering, which means that we all work hand in hand and that is why I really must understand all functional characteristics of an appliance as well as the manufacturing procedures. Since so much emphasis is put on design and since Gorenje is a design-driven company, a designer is the last to fail when a technical problem needs to be resolved.

At first, I could not believe it. We all invested so much work, energy and effort in this project. I did not expect the award even though I had a secret wish we would receive it. So I did not experience the euphoric state at first, but rather satisfaction, I can explain by saying to myself ‘Once it must come’. And it did. I totally realised what happened after a while, because I needed a certain period of time to be able to understand what had happened. And also the entire team celebrated with champagne only around two weeks after the news. But during our celebration we felt a lot of positive energy. Our Design Centre received an internationally renowned recognition ranking us among top designers.

Around ten years ago, Gorenje made a decision that the Design Centre must focus all its energy on becoming a recognized design-minded and design-driven company. At that time Gorenje has sent the Simple&logical washing machine to compete for the Red Dot Award, but it did not receive it. Nevertheless, that model was very important, our customers noticed it and accepted it well. Even though that its life cycle is completed, many people still recognise it.

It was really well accepted and because of it many consumers decided to buy our brand. Since we became a design-driven company we have to continue, and we will, to do our best and seek recognition through professional awards. What is also important here is a ‘character of a star’ when we can quote professional references. For this reason, we will continue to compete with our products for such awards. As members of the club of the best we can proudly say that we are a design-driven company. And we don’t wish to give an impression of not being modest, since we are. Yet, when you tell the customers that you are ranked among the best, both in terms of technology and design and you can prove it, people believe it. It is crucial that the customers see, also through a prism of professional awards, that we are really good.

Customers are today becoming increasingly demanding and are paying more and more attention to emotions. In overcrowded market and with enormous choice of household appliances, we need to offer them something extra. This means we have to provide something else in addition to products functions, which are today taken for granted, as is taken for granted that appliance you buy works. What we are doing is raising the quality of our appliances above the average quality of competitive products. This can be also achieved through emotions which are closest to the visual information, which we manipulate with a design image. This is for me the main reason why design is important.

This is already happening. Our perception on that issue has changed and is still changing. This is unfortunately one of the characteristics of consumerism. Gorenje, as a manufacturer and a trader is, of course, interested in selling as much as possible, yet it does not force the customers to buy our products. Consumers as well as market and competition pressure are forcing us to make products in accordance with the users wishes. And this is completely logical. We all put a great importance on trends. This happened first in fashion and textile industry, where we started to buy and wear clothes for one season only. However, the fact is that people tend to replace the appliances more frequently. They wish to be modern. And here again, new interior design trends emerged. Kitchens are already integrated into living rooms and that is why our household appliances must look nice. If we would want to use a household appliance for 25 years, as our grandmas did, we would be immediately treated as traditionalists, old fashioned people, finding it hard to understand the trends. And because we all want to surround our selves with beautiful things, Gorenje gives a lot of effort to achieve to make them beautiful.