Droog

Since 1993, Droog has been a budding conceptual design company that has helped Dutch design gain international recognition. They create in a way that is fresh (sometimes unusual), down to earth and iconic, with the ultimate goal of changing the way people think about their surroundings (which is what we obviously love about them here at Vidafine). Headquartered in Amsterdam under the distinctive eye of Renny Ramakers, their main office operates out of the Netherlands just above their store, while another store has sprouted in New York in 2008. In addition to designing clever products, one of the latest initiatives of this company is their Lab. The Droog Lab is definitely something worth talking about as it aims to bring together the creative design talents of the team with global issues that require further investigation. "The Droog lab is free, unrestricted and exploratory, yet has a very ambitious mission: to define the next generation of global design. The Lab identifies urgencies on a global level and investigates them locally, with local partners, consulting experts, and known and unknown designers. he aim is to generate outcomes that have relevance on a global level. In other words, they believe the next generation of global design will focus on responding to contemporary issues, investigated locally, but then translated to an outcome that has value for contemporary society in general. They believe that one way to understand what's happening around us and to gain new inspiration for design is to visit foreign places with an outsider's perspective, be present, engage with others and collaborate. Two projects that I found particularly interesting was Luxury of the North and Droog al Arab, projects which speak directly to what we have been sharing with you at Vidafine about Back to Basics and Community.