Indesignlive.hk: Tell us about your design collaboration with Hong Kong-based designer, Michael Young and how this has driven your range and distribution within Asia.

Matt Pepper: Michael had designed Chair 4a for one of his wife’s interiors projects and because of that it had no distribution beyond that – so our collaboration came from a shared desire to get the chair into production.

EOQ Link Table

IDLHK: What do you deliver to the Hong Kong and greater China market?

MP: We have a core aim to show the world that Hong Kong and China are the best places for developing innovative products and techniques. It may seem that the continents outside of Asia are the hardest to convince of that, but in fact it’s often the Chinese that are least likely to see value in a product made over here.

IDLHK: What is EOQ’s design philosophy and how do you best represent this within the region?

MP: We’re working to make beautiful and useful products.

IDLHK: Industrial design and EOQ?

MP: Industry simply means that the result is contributing to an economic system and so for us it can cover mass production in an aluminium factory or a man in a room in HK folding paper. The key thing is that we locate our designs within a process that is functional and useful. We’re not about creating a rarefied piece that comes from abstraction – we’re rooted in the busy streets and sheds of true industry.

IDLHK: Summarise EOQ:

NW: Innovative. Unfettered. Young.

EOQ

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