The designers at Lava Lab, which is the innovation lab of the Amsterdam-based creative agency Lava Design, have an ultra-interdisciplinary approach to design. “We work at the intersection of design, creative strategy and technology,” says co-founder of Lava Lab Cecilia Martin. “Our favourite clients are the those who are ready for change.”
Lava Lab attracks clients who are ready to break boundaries and realise new possibilities. They look for those risk takers that are not afraid of disruptive creativity.
At this very moment, there are Lava and Lava Lab members in Alaska, LA, Beijing, and soon in Cape Town at the annual Design Indaba Conference! Their work agenda, jokes Martin, looks like a music tour. But Lava Lab sees this travelling as important for them to find inspiration in situ with each client.
We had the chance to pick the co-founder’s brain on the things she thinks are most exciting about working in a digital space and interacting with a growing generation of digital natives.
Tell us about the way Lava Lab designers work.
We don’t believe in manuals and rules. We think further than logos. We create visual storytelling through an installation, an app, a graphic, a website anything! We are not afraid of trying new formats. At the end everything is talking the same language. It is about ideas and meaning that will have strong impact on society and drive forward a positive change.
What do you mean by “disruptive creativity” - what are its characteristics?
We mean a departure from the norm. Bringing companies to the antipodes of where they are. Changing the way they are thinking and breaking their patterns.
Are you all creative hybrids? Or do you have distinct roles in the office?
Most of us are very hybrid and combine multiple talents and skills. Very often we get an assignment that is our of our comfort zone and then we figure out how we will shape it. We always invent a solution!
Do you have a young team?
Yes we work very close with Millennials and young generations embracing their new way of thinking.
Do you think the younger generation (of digital natives, who’ve used devices since they could walk and talk) are more innovative than their parents?
Yes, they are growing up in culture that embraces ideas and creativity more than ever seen before. This is the new renaissance based not on corporations or companies, but on human power and individuals with creative drive.
And as this digital-generation reaches adulthood do you think we are in for some big surprises?
I think we are. Maybe then things will be more regularised and controlled that they are now. We are not aware but we are living in an era of tremendous freedom. There is huge explosion of ideas happenings and the means to bring them forward. When people look back at this time they are going to say: "WOW, look how many things they invented!"
Cecilia Martin and Klasien van de Zandschulp will be speaking at Design Indaba Conference 2016. Book now.
