Why cooking will be your next source of innovation.
How to make your idea become a reality.
Hipsters, are they really trendsetters or just wannabes.
What I’ve learned from El Bulli’s Ferran Andria.
What I’ve learned from Industrial Design school.
What I’ve learned from London.
WHAT
I HAVE LEARNED.
Entrepreneurship Business creativity & Substances.
Issue 01 January 2015 UK Edition
Enter the confusing yet brilliant mind of Patrick Wongmek, the Designpreneur.
MY BIG
Frank. (friendship)
BRAIN THEORY Frank lamp by www.pana-objects.com
4820 £5.00
USD$ 13.49
MY BIG BRAIN THEORY Thanks to “Madmen” and its Don Draper for now the creative profession is become a big buzz again. But being creative in business is not about sipping whiskey at noon and being cool while cheating on your wife, the reality of business creative is far from those on-screen fantasies. WIHL sat down with a man who we think he manage to bridge the gap between these two worlds during a breezy London summer trying to crack the code of how his brain works. WIHL: First off, congratulation on your new project, Catalyst, which is now became a big buzz in the entrepreneur scene right now. Could you please explain what makes this project so special? PW: Thanks you!! For me the thing that make Catalyst so interesting to work with is that we’re not just a typical design firm start-up. We seek growth from a relationship and partnership with our business’s buddies. Instead of being paid only from a design fee and commission on projects we will help our buddies invest on that project if the project is really interesting and offer an innovative solution for people. WIHL: So it’s means that you will only work with people and project that you like? PW: Yeah, sound a bit ballsy but this is the way that we believe any innovative project should be done. You need a synergy between people and passion. Would you want to spend 8 hours a day 7 days per week working on things that you hate? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. WIHL: Could you tell us about Pana-Objects? PW: Sure, Pana Objects was born out of the pure frustration of me and my friends when we can’t find any product in Thai market that can show our woodcraft skill to the world while being relevant to a modern lifestyle not just an exotic decoration. Now Pana Objects produced household items that made completely out of sophisticated wood with our “Industrial-craft” method. By using a precise machine to achieved the aesthetic level that will be too time consuming when make by hand.
Patrick Wongmek Designprenuer, 28.
WIHL: You called yourself Designpreneur. How is it differs from other types entrepreneur? PW: Designpreneur is a kind of entrepreneur that budding their business interest from their design skills and creative tendencies. We know how to make idea comes alive. We love to solve people’s and business’s problem in the most innovative and beautiful ways. We understand that it’s human who will use our product/services not a vauge word like “consumer”.
“ When you understand that consumers are human you’ve got a key to win ”
WIHL: Your background were Bangkok based industrial designer and London based branding specialist. How the contrast of 2 different skill sets influence your work and creativity? PW: Having a hand-on experience as a designer help confirmed that design thinking and creativity are the most important part of any business. We’re now live in a world that everybody do and sell almost the same thing. How boring is that? And more importantly how we will get ahead of those irrelevant noise in the market? And that’s when branding kicks in. Branding skills help me communicate a right message to a right group of people and reinforce product/service with a story that not only intrigued them but also relevant to them. So having these 2 strange mixture of background is not a contrast for me it’s more like a Yin-Yang power inwhich help me know that human should be at the center of the business not money. When we offer product or story that based on human’s need then everything will flow by itself.
Pana Objects’s products are available at www.pana-objects.com
Founder of Pana Objects and Catalyst Business Design