The Spanish National Design Awardee for 2024 Héctor Serrano revisited his 25-year creative career in a recent talk and showcase was The Journey in Between.

 The event, part of the month-long cultural celebration of Spain’s National Day in Manila. 

“It is through conversations such as these with our partners around the world, today especially with Spain, a country with such rich history and heritage, that we continue to deepen our own understanding of what good design truly means for us Filipinos,” Benilde industrial design program officer-in-charge chairperson Johann Mangussad noted.

 Ambassador of Spain to the Philippines Miguel Utray was the guest of honor.

 Serrano, a renowned Valencian designer, shed light on his retrospective exhibition in Madrid, curated by design journalist Tachy Mora. According to him, the long table displayed thereserved as a metaphor of his journey. 

 “The exhibition is not that about the final result, but it’s more about sharing with the visitor the storytelling and thinkingbehind the objects,” he explained. 

 As he showed the audience a photo of his daughter, Serrano expounded that the driving force propelling his creations is something inherent to children, their inquisitiveness and innocent enthusiasm to learn about materials, technology, and human behavior. 

 “Curiosity for me is the engine of everything. We try to keep curiosity running through every project that we do in order to discover new paths and keep innovation going,” he noted.

 Serrano likewise discussed the different areas of innovationwhich he considers as the core of design. 

 “As designers, the material is — like for a writer — the language. It’s how we communicate,” he shared. “Sometimes, innovation is silent. Maybe the user or the person who enjoys the object does not necessarily know that it’s there.”

 He highlighted the natural connection between innovation and commitment, in relation to a sustainability project he worked on with his team. 

 “We wanted to go beyond not only using sustainable and recyclable materials, but to question how we produce, commercialize, and sell products,” Serrano said. 

 Memory, marked by associations and functionality, was also tackled by Serrano as a significant part of his creative approach. 

 “When you first see an object, in order to decide if you like it or you don’t, or you feel attracted or not, you always base it on your memory,” he shared. “So I think as a designer, it’s very interesting to play with that collective memory.” 

 The multifaceted industrial designer spoke on connecting with something in an intuitive way by means of gestures as well ascommunicating one’s intuition through synthesis. 

 “I think synthesis is one of the jobs of a designer — to try to communicate a complex message but in a very simple way,” Serrano pointed out. 

Emotion is likewise a vital feature of design, according to Serrano, as there are some decisions made by creatives based on emotional choices rather than rational ones.

 Creativity and immersion through installations were also essential elements in his works. 

“As we are obsessed with the use of mobile and digital[gadgets], I think there is a trend which is about doing things with our hands,” he said. “We designed a full collection of objects for basic craft exercises to disconnect from the screen.”

The event was hosted by the Industrial Design Program of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde.