A Minute With: Todd Bracher, the creative director of Georg Jensen

The furniture designer has become known for balanced, practical pieces.

Strandelier. Courtesy of Todd Bracher Studio
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In one sentence,

I am an observer and a distiller. I watch and sift through what is around me.

I am inspired by what I am not able to do. For me, design is really a by-product of wanting to learn about the world around me. If I want to learn and experience, for example, a culture, I move there and design for them.

I have curiosity

and the desire to share. I am always hungry to learn about the world around me. There is no limit to what we can learn. Therefore, I choose to take on challenges that open my mind and educate me. Then I look to offer design solutions that share this experience.

Design has great power.

It has the ability to captivate an audience. Just as with film, you sit and expect to gain something. For me, design is there to give and share. That's what makes design so wonderful.

I am inspired by nature.

How a tree grows or how the patterns on a butterfly evolve - they have purpose and meaning.

My "muse", so to speak,

would have to be mathematics. It has the ability to make something completely truthful and irrefutable. Just as a scientist has a mathematical formula that is truth, I seek to find design that is equally as resolved and pure.

I am currently reading

A Fine Line, a book on strategic design written by the founder of Frog Design. It's a wonderful, well-written book and I share many of the author's viewpoints.

It is important to read such things because they help you understand the business aspect of a creative vision. Once you are able to speak with chief executive officers, you are able to make changes with design. I think it is important for any designer hoping to make it big across the many creative platforms that design has to offer these days to have a vocabulary that major financial decision makers understand.

When I am faced with

a creative block, it's because I am lacking some vital information. I go back to research, revisit the purpose of the project, have dialogues with users, etc. To me, all the additional information fuels the conception.

I was amazed

when someone told me how the country of Ecuador found a new export business based on their unique location. They apparently have started exporting roses because Ecuador is directly on the equator. The roses grow perfectly straight, up towards the sun, which is directly overhead.

With the premium on space

as costs continue to rise, traditions such as dining rooms and spare bedrooms will be updated to reflect how we actually live. The younger generations don't typically have a need for a formal room, and therefore will find a use for the space that is appropriate for how they specifically live. Consider a quiet room or a meditation room, a natural room or a health room. That, for me, is the future.

The brands that will most impact

the home and interior design will not be obvious interior brands. Tech companies such as 3M or DuPont, I feel, will have a greater role in interior spaces. You can compare this observation to how Apple, a non-mobile phone manufacturer, redefined the mobile phone industry through technological advances. In the same way, newer materials and newer applications will fuel new ideas for the future.

I am not a believer in trends.

Yes, they exist, but I am not one to follow them. I believe in finding honesty and balance with design that is harmonious with how one lives.

The only advice

I would give anyone is to do what you believe in, not what furniture stores tell you, not what trend reports tell you. Consider the light and how it reveals your life within the home. This delicate balance defines your life rather thansomeone's marketing plans.