It basically started as a crazy idea of designing a kitchen that would match your bin.

Vipp refer to themselves as ‘toolmakers’, seeing their responsibility as providing solutions, and becoming almost an extension of the human experience as core to their role. They have a vision of seeing each Vipp product as a long-term investment, and that it does exactly what it needs to do, therefore it only ever needs to be designed once. The Danes are known for their egalitarian approach to life, and the innate shared and individual experiences therein, and Vipp is the perfect conduit to bring that craft, quality, experience, and endurance together.

Based in Brygge, Copenhagen, the company is a third-generation, family owned company, now run by Holger Nielsen’s daughter, Jette Egelund, her children, and some 45 employees. We have the pleasure of Chief Designer Morten Bo Jensen’s insights into the world of Vipp.

It’s an ongoing process to investigate new potentials for the Vipp brand and the Vipp team. We have a gross list of ideas that we evaluate on a weekly basis, but sometimes ideas jump up out of the blue. It’s one of the advantages of a smaller family run business.

We work on many projects simultaneously, and I aim to develop them daily. Right now, we are in the process of opening Branded Spaces (stores within other stores) all around the world, so there is a bit of travelling too. Next stop, Manila.

You can probably claim that we carved a niche for this ‘tool’ approach by being true to the legacy of Holger Nielsen’s original bin design from 1939, which was essentially a tool for a hairdressing salon. The design industry today however, is quite diverse, hence why our aim of staying true to your values is a good way to differentiate yourself as a brand.

A culturally anchored appreciation of simplicity, functionality, and craftsmanship is definitely a driving factor. On the Vipp team, we all share a passion for conceiving products with long durability, not least for the eye.

Basically, it was a design response to our CEO Kasper Egeland’s need of an urban escape while he was living in New York with his family some years ago. By developing this urban escape, we allowed ourselves to extend our design-DNA into a more large-scale approach, to create an appropriate frame for our significantly expanded product line. All interior is by Vipp and every little detail inside and outside is taken care of.

Right now, we work quite a bit with architect David Thulstrup (Studio David Thulstrup) on various projects that comprise our Vipp Hotel concept. This concept allows our customers to ‘date’ our products prior to purchasing, for instance, our kitchens—it is a great way to stage the Vipp products in a variety of different settings.

I think we have managed to do so by remaining close to the materials and manufacturing processes that we have obtained almost 80 years of experience with. We also emphasise the principle of remaining humble when jumping into any new product categories and new materials.

In my opinion designers and architects should remain critical of technology. At Vipp, we focus on mechanical features and tactile materiality as these are so deeply rooted in our DNA. Having said that I do think that it is important that brands and designers in general help to push technology forward through an explorative approach.

It stems from our desire to do our very best to reconcile all resources into the process of finding the fundamental essence of a ‘product’, which we believe can last for many years to come. Holger Nielsen managed to capture this essence with his original bin design and our ambition is to see if we can achieve exactly the same with all of our other products—time will tell.

By staying true to who we are and making sure that design enthusiasts, architects, and designers across the globe know of our existence, about what we do, and what we stand for. Instead of spending money and energy on traditional fairs and advertising we prefer to invent concepts like the Vipp Shelter and the Vipp Hotel as a megaphone for a global outreach.

It basically started as a crazy idea of designing a kitchen that would match your bin—usually you would probably think of it as the other way around. Once we saw the prototypes we were quite keen on bringing it to the market. Any Vipp product evolves and improves over the years as we find things to improve—it is one of the benefits of deliberately trying to disregard the design trends of today in favour of design that builds on longer-lasting qualities.

Hopefully designers and architects look at Vipp for inspiration, but at the end of the day it is always important that you find your own way. We’ve focused on creating tools and using a lot of time and energy on making sure that the world knows about them. You can invent the best product on the planet, but it really doesn’t matter if nobody knows about it.

That people appreciate what you are offering and buy the products with a continuous sale. Jasper Morrison once said that the sign of a great design is when it remains in production after 30 years or more. I couldn’t agree more—that’s why we strive to find the essence of things.

Well, a lot of things that I’m prevented from elaborating on too much for the time being. One thing is for sure, we never sit still, and as a team we are ambitious. The past few years we’ve been launching furniture pieces which is something we aim at consolidating further with more offerings.

This interview was originally published in Minimalissimo Nº3