DIA Member Spotlight: Kosta Stefanov
This member-nominated feature will showcase the diverse talents, stories, and personalities within our community. It's your chance to nominate a designer you would like to know more about. Let's celebrate the unique individuals who make up the heart of the DIA.
Introducing Kosta Stefanov, Creative Director of Upstairs Yellow. Upstairs Yellow is a product agency, made of explorers, thinkers, inventors and doers.
DA: What sources or situations have been the greatest inspiration for your innovative ideas in industrial design projects?
KS: I’m a strong believer in reversing the design process, constantly looking at the end to justify the beginning, to ensure the design has a real chance of making it through to production.
It’s probably no surprise what consumes and inspires me is studying how things are made – I’m obsessed with the intricacies of manufacturing processes and techniques at every level and constantly looking at ways to adapt these in unexpected ways.
Successful product design follows a pretty simple formula, identify a need, create a solution that satisfies the need better than anyone else and crucially, have a solid distribution channel, the real magic for me is when a product transcends the formula and delivers an added emotional reaction, almost an irrational desire. What inspires me are the immeasurable ideas that surprise, are intuitive and create joy.
DA: What are some surprising aspects of what you do as an industrial designer that people outside the industry might not be aware of?
KS: Much of my work over the past decade has centred on developing new product innovations to promoting existing brands. Spanning design and contract manufacture, the speed of development is unbelievably fast (measured in days and weeks, not months and years), in this context I think people would be surprised by how little time I spend on a finished design. 80% of my time is spent on brand analysis, uncovering trigger points for consumers, and communicating with manufacturers globally and locally to understand the supply chain limitations and ensure our designs are manufacturable and commercially feasible.
Recently, we had the exterior of our weatherboard house painted, I recall the painter remarking “the real reason people hire a painter is to do the prep work, painting is the easy part”. Much like painting, our final designs easily takes shape once we’ve done our prep.
DA: What inspired your decision to join and continue to be involved with the Design Institute of Australia?
KS: Being connected to a community promoting shared knowledge across design disciplines resonated with our own practice which encapsulated a broader spectrum of design from creative direction and branding to parametric design.
DA: What is the most unusual item you keep at your workspace?
KS: I have a small yet complex tensegrity model made from wooden dowels and fishing line that satisfyingly compresses and expands under hand - it has travelled with me from every desk for the past 10 years. I purchased the model from a vendor in the city, who sat on a milk crate and silently constructed these one off pieces selling them literally on the street. It’s a piece that surprises and constantly brings me joy.
Got a story to share? Feel free to nominate yourself or your studio to be profiled.