Concepts by No Picnic exhibited in Milan

As an industrial design and innovation firm we at No Picnic were delighted to have the opportunity to work with our friends at Svensk Form (the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design) and this year’s Swedish pavilion at the Furniture Fair in Milan.

“We thought this would be a fun project to do and it surely was. I think that doing something different and fun is always good for a creative business, to keep the spirits up and running”, says project manager at No Picnic Sebastian Sabouné. “Not everything needs to be so corporate in the industrial design business.
Sometimes you just need to have some plane fun”, he continuous.

Our thoughts went directly to Swedish materials, and to the natural environment and Folkhemmet. We wanted to re-focus and get away from the feeling of ‘garage sales’ and ‘flea markets’, and instead create a uniformity, which in itself could be an exhibition, as well as a natural part of every exhibitor.

No Picnic came up with the idea of a Swedish ‘barn’ surrounded by ‘islands’, inspired by the topographical patterns from the Swedish west coast archipelago. We wanted to make a pun of the most cliché like representation of Sweden, or as the architect Horst Petri says: “It’s a bit of an inside joke about the brief in order to avoid the standard jokes about Swedishness: shyness, sin, social distance, etc.

We used both architects and product designers from different parts of the world for this project, and this gave us the advantage to see in different perspectives and to gather a lot of input. The result became remarkable”, Petri finishes.

In addition to the concept of the Swedish pavilion No Picnic presents the concept named ALMA, a series of ‘social swings’ that intend to represent the soul of Sweden, where everyone is called to participate to the development of the whole community.

“As teamwork is needed to enjoy the swing, so in our everyday life a conjoint effort is important to reach a common goal”, says industrial designer Leonardo Salzedo.

These are also main values for No Picnic, since 1993 we have been active in the creation of design strategies for global brands, in which teamwork and playfulness has been the core of our success.

Sebastian Sabouné, Project manager
Horst Petri, Architect
Victor Peters, Architect
Anna-Carin Neale, Industrial designer 
Leonardo Salzedo, Designer
Carlotta Trevisan, Designer

Press contact:
Leszek Bonikowski - leszek.bonikowski@nopicnic.se

www.nopicnic.com