DAMN° magazine # 34 DANIELE LAGO
Welcome to Lago Land Open door policy In the quiet municipality of Villa del Conte, in the Padua province of Italy and only 40 kilometres from Venice, nestles Lago Arredamenti, a furniture design company in family hands. DAMN° spoke to the man on top, Daniele Lago, to learn more about his rather unusual, particularly innovative approach to business, one that has clearly proven to work. The secret is out, and it has everything to do with design.
text BEATRICE FELIZ images © LAGO
Daniele Lago was only 33 when he took over his family company in 2006. A self-described good-fornothing at school, he could have been a scary horse to bet on. But he was no ignoramus. Quite the opposite - his hatred for “official, notions-based learning methodologies” was inversely proportional to his passion for open creativity and for the type of culture that “you do not apprehend from books but through looking around and talking to interesting people”. When he entered the family business he was driven not so much by experience but by a belief stemming from the heart: the design industry was a little too stuck-up to thrive in today’s world and it needed a little shake. Six years later, Lago Arredamenti advanced from a turnover of five million Euros to thirty million: despite the economic crisis (that since 2008 has particularly affected the companies in the Lago price range, the middle one). And this, despite the fact that Lago’s market is still mainly Italy (“for this reason we can foresee growth by merely focusing more internationally”, says Daniele), a country whose consumption is very much down, due to the economic uncertainty.
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DAMN°: What’s your secret, Daniele? Daniele Lago: I brought design into the company. Obviously I do not solely mean product design, but the diffusion of a design-related culture within all company processes, from conception to distribution. I believe in openness rather than closed-doors, whatever the economical, social or political situation: positive surprises can stem from anyone and from everywhere, so at Lago we insist on giving everyone the opportunity to be creative, from the administrative staff to the carpenters, from the receptionist to the head of production. Not only does it work, it also keeps people happy.
Daniele Lago, Art director of the company. In 15 years he has designed nearly all the products in the catalogue. His work aims to solve everyday needs with simplicity. The key idea behind the products is the use of colour and modularity, allowing for high levels of customisation. (facing page, top) The opening event at LAGO Appartamento, Turin. (facing page, bottom)
DAMN°: Your way of communicating is certainly extremely innovative. A while back you launched the Appartamento concept: you rent out actual living spaces (furnished with Lago products) to 'tenants' who you recruit through the web. They then live in them and open up their 'home' for social and cultural events. Why did you do that? DL: That’s the sort of innovation I was referring to earlier, that it is not just about products. Appartamento is a new distribution model, and a totally different one from showrooms or stores. We have those too, obvi-
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