Welcome to Future Talks by RTF, where we engage in conversations with the visionaries who breathe life into design narratives. In our next session, we’re honored to feature Tamime Daoudi, a prolific Franco-Syrian designer born in 1981 in Damascus and now based in Strasbourg. Tamime’s journey, marked by studies in industrial design across Paris, Strasbourg, and Montreal, culminated in the founding of his own industrial design studio in 2010.
With a passion for innovation, Tamime collaborates with both established companies and startups, earning recognition through multiple design awards. His studio operates seamlessly across borders, engaging with firms in France, Germany, and the UK. Tamime’s approach extends beyond design ideation, as his studio meticulously oversees projects from conception to industrialization. Leveraging a diverse team of experts—including Mechatronic engineers, marketers, and scientists—the studio epitomizes design as a collaborative effort, blending various skills to exceed user expectations.
Join us for a riveting discussion with Tamime Daoudi as we explore the dynamic world where creativity, technology, and user-centric design converge. This promises to be an enlightening session, delving into the multifaceted nature of design and its transformative impact.
RTF: Tell us about your industrial design studio, Tamime Daoudi Studio and what the early enterprises of the studio characterised.
Tamime: The studio was founded in 2008 in Strasbourg, the capital of Europe, a city located in the Rhein with a strong industrial history and identity. I started as an independant designer, working for different design agencies in Strasbourg and Paris. After various collaborations, I Decided To sign my own projects in 2012. In 2021, I started recruiting to develop the studio and working on more projects, today we are 3 designers and we hope to continue our growth. We work on various fields of design, lately we started to get a reputation for medical design and we opened a service for users interface.
RTF: How have your aesthetics and approach to design evolved with time and how does Tamime Daoudi Studio reflect it?
Tamime: Aesthetic or what appeals as beautiful is more a consequence than a goal itself. A product has an aesthetic, an identity because it is thought and concieved to be smart, intuitive and durable. It s a deduction and a core guideline in our work at the studio, a design project is not just the design itself, the intelligence of this job is the capacity to bring together complimentary competences, engineers, marketers, scientists, developers and make them work altogether as an elegant orchestra. The result is a high end product with an aesthetic adapted to the end user.
RTF: What is your opinion on trends in design? Do designers shape trends or do the trends shape the approach of designers?
Tamime: I think it goes both ways, designers can initiate trends, create a vision that inspires and movements are known to have been shaped by designers such as the Bauhaus, memphis or minimalism.
Trends are a source of inspiration for designers in various fields that could be scientific, economics, social, ecology, etc….
RTF: What are some projects you did that had a lasting impact on you?
Tamime: The tube bench, one of my first projects I developed and produced with the Hanssen metalwork factory in Strasbourg in 2012. The process was to design by taking into consideration the production constraints of the plant. At that time they had a large stock of steel profiles that could be cut, bent, welded and thermocoated. The adjunction of these constraints gave birth to a standardized Bench that are connectable together.
The fragment lamp, edited by Matiere grise uses a similar process, laser cut, welding, folding and thermocoating to conceive a modular piece that shapes light following your wishes.
A last project is a lab reader, that detects in ten minutes with the help of a camera and software different typology of microbes In small biological samples. The idea is to create a shape that fits the internal components and allows a quick and intuitive reading of the machine’s functions. The slashed corner on the top is present because it was an empty space. Each line must have a sense.
RTF: How important do you consider the need for super ‘receptive’ heads in the team to establish a progressive mindset?
Tamime: It is part of the designers prerogative to have a receptive mindset. Without it no problem solving can be possible, no outside of the box solution can be expected, no innovative groundbreaking expected. At our studio we regularly expose, debate and nourish one another with ideas, thoughts and constructive criticism and to do so you need to keep an open mind and be reactive when concept propositions are presented.
RTF: What were your early influences in designing?
Tamime: Roger Talon, Dieter Rams for the minimalistic and importance of user centered design, The Radi designers for the way they told stories and communicate emotions trough their projects. Konstantin Grcic and Jean Marie Massaud in their essentialism.
RTF: How do you keep yourself creatively bolstered to be progressive and true to your approach towards designs?
Tamime: There is not a particular routine, inspiration comes through observation, I often observe people, situations, Cross different ideas especially those who are not supposedly meant to get together, you often get yourself surprised by the result. So yeah no rush, just be in the present moment and let things flow.
RTF: How do you gauge a new landscape in industrial design?
Tamime: Following those criteria : Sustainability, common sense, economics, usability, intuitively.
RTF: Where does one find you when you’re not working?
Tamime: Family time with my Wonderfull woman and son. Hang out with my friends and probably on a basketball court.
RTF: Can you reflect on your journey as a designer and give young design students some wisdom to excel in this field?
Tamime: Be, stay, cultivate your curiosity especially for things, ideas that might not in the moment be in of a particular interest in the moment. It wi
Thank you so much for doing this interview with us. It has been a pleasure getting to know about you and your work. We’re sure that your insights will be highly valuable to our audience which includes architects and design students.
