Meet Mockett’s Design Competition Winner
Meet Mockett’s Design Competition Winner
An Interview with Sebastian Bartlett
Sebastian Bartlett is one of the winners of the 36th Annual Design Competition and a student of Design at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. We had the chance to catch up with him and discuss his design process, how he came up with his award winning design, and what the future holds for him leading up to graduation and beyond.
Doug Mockett: Tell us about your design background and what attracted you to this industry.
Sebastian Bartlett: My parents were both architects growing up so they always encouraged me to go into the world of design. I didn’t want to do exactly what they did so I opted to study Industrial Design. I learned about the Design Competition through my professor, Michael Rall, who’s been having his students enter the Contest as the first project of the semester for a few years.
DM: Tell us about your award-winning design and your inspiration behind it.
SB: In doing research into Mockett, I noticed you guys like to focus on art-deco type parts and a lot of simple, elegant pieces. I started by looking through art-deco patterns and I found some things that inspired me to go with the repetition of three. I did a few initial sketches and just kind of explored those shapes a bit but was really looking to design something simple but elegant.
DM: What is your process and approach to design? How do you envision the concept-to-part pipeline and how do you execute?
SB: I’m still a student so that’s something I’ve been trying to figure out the last couple of years. I think what I have ultimately figured out is doing the research to determine what the end goal is before you even start. Defining how the end product should look and asking questions such as ‘is it easy to manufacture’, ‘is it inexpensive to make’, and ‘is this what the client wants’ all help in deciding on the final design.
DM: Were you affected by the pandemic in any way as a designer?
SB: The main way it has affected me is missing out on face-to-face interaction with my peers in class. Receiving feedback and bouncing ideas off of each other is so important and having to do online and hybrid classes has taken that away.
DM: After having won our design contest, what is your next project? What does the future of design look like to you?
SB: For my final project this semester I am working on designing a pair of skis using as much recycled material as possible. I’ve found a bunch of biodegradable adhesives that I can use and I’m planning on gathering repurposed wood and plastics from the rivers and wetlands around where I live to make the skis as environmentally friendly as possible which is the direction I see the Design industry heading in. Also, in creating skis for nearly-free since I’ll be using mostly repurposed materials, I would be able to price them at a much lower cost than traditional skis. Skiing is such an expensive sport to get into so making it more accessible to people would be a nice bonus.
Congratulations and thanks to Sebastian for producing a simply elegant design and walking us through his process of getting there. We are so excited to continue working with him to bring this Towel Hook to market!
For more information on our Annual Design Competition or to see how you can enter click below! We are now accepting entries for our 37th instalment!
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