Bønnelycke MDD – a Multi Disciplinary Design company
Bønnelycke MDD is a Multi Disciplinary Design company with both national and international experience. We are perfectionists with professional curiosity offering a variety of design disciplines encompassing architecture and interior design, product design, furniture design and graphic design.
At Bønnelycke we do not design for the sake of it. We believe that design does not hold any values per se. To us, the value of a design emerges when a product has relevance and when it is purchased, used and appreciated – this is why we design.
We view all assignments through the same optic irrespective of the scale, and approach them with equal dedication and enthusiasm. We carefully define the wishes, goals and conditions relevant to each assignment. The joy of working with and around boundaries is a driving force providing inspiration to our designs.
Visual communication during the process creates a vital platform for debate, understanding, cooperation and ultimately completion of an assignment. Our objective is to create valid, all-round solutions for our costumers – whether they are private individuals or corporate units.
Many of our clients are manufacturers who operate by means of either in-house production or through sub suppliers. Thus, since 1988, we have accumulated a substantial amount of design knowledge and manufacturing experience within the global market. Our assignments often integrate several of our disciplines. This generates a credible image and a customised life cycle of the designed product. This means that the complete life span of each product from manufacturing, distribution and packaging through to context and sales is important to us.
We do not accommodate our clients under false pretences. Qualified sparring is our clients’ guarantee for strong and competent solutions, which are profitable and aesthetic, and we do not compromise in this respect. Customer / Bønnelycke relationships are often long-term and based on mutual respect, loyalty and trust, which is the result of honest open dialogue, credible designs and last but not least, financial viability.
We are committed to providing our clients with what they pay for – which is their own design!
The Company History
Bønnelycke MDD was established in 1988. Driven by a insuppressible urge and desire to work constructively and innovatively, Henrik Bønnelycke started his career with the design of lamps, furniture and interior decorating. Quickly, he became known as an unconventional architect with no whims and fancies. His ability to challenge and optimise the manufacturing process itself is to be found in Henrik’s original professional background as a toolmaker. ”It could be fun” and ”of course it can be done” – are phrases often used in his company.
From day one, the core of his work has been to create products simply because they are needed. Designs by Bønnelycke MDD grow out of a specific need or requirement expressed by the customer – and by the general public as such. This has resulted in a comprehensive portfolio of projects and designs allowing the company to slowly but steadily expand over the years.
Our Perspective on Architecture
Achitecture is the basic structure on which all other parts are founded. This takes place at street level and the building and the aspect of the building is located in an environment on which we have no influence. At the same time, it is imperative that the building and the aspect of the building interact with the surroundings.
Architecture includes buildings, aspects of buildings, manufacturing plants, extensions and single-family houses, which Bønnelycke MDD has designed and subsequently overseen the construction of.
Thus, architecture encompasses everything that cannot immediately be moved or rolled aside, once we have completed our work. Consequently, the overall lines represent a very unique obligation. The end-user must be comfortable and the infrastructure must work. Details such as surfaces, handles, lighting and colour are secondary in this respect. However, architecture is not successful until all details have been accurately prioritised and combined.
The joy of working with architecture is basically related to the joy of working with and around boundaries given beforehand. In fact, our creativity is stimulated by such boundaries because we are forced to utilise them optimally – both physically and financially. An assignment with no boundaries loses its importance. There must be a starting point as well as definitive end.
The Way We Approach Interior Design
Interior design is about approaching an empty room in a logical, strategically way and making it attractive and useful. For example in shops, how should the lighting inside a women’s lingerie dressing room fall and what is the ideal distance between an espresso machine and the trash bin in a café? A nightclub or dance hall must both give an environment for flirtation whilst at the same time offer a plain view for the waiters and bartenders, without the guests feeling that they are being watched. Irrespective of the nature of the assignment, the final result should be like a dance: accurately and rhythmically orchestrated.
Interior design is exposed to the scrutiny of an audience from the moment the doors open. Their reaction to lighting, furniture comfort and the display of restroom facilities is immediate. The audience must be able to determine what to expect from a place even before a door closes behind them. They must be presented with a total experience. One might draw a parallel to the difference between actually being in Brazil and holding a pen from Brazil. It is all about being embraced and captivated. The overall idea must be present in the furniture, the walls, the tableware etc.
No two places must be alike. Our unique experience in customising our designs of furniture, lamps and details enables us to be innovative in relation to each individual project.
Experience has taught us that precision and dialogue are of vital importance when presenting our ideas during the developing process. Consequently, we use plans, elevations, sections, visualisations and 3D interactive files in order to make the process easily comprehensible and to ensure a qualified basis on which to make the necessary decisions.
Our Design Ethos for Product Design
Over time, product design has provided Bønnelycke MDD with an invaluable insight into many different areas. For example, spectacle frames require a certain amount of knowledge in terms of anatomy, mounting, weight and collections. A coffee set involves considerations about temperature, thickness, size, stacking abilities and cleaning. Lamps are not only about lighting but paradoxically also about creating the right amount of shade.
Product design encompasses both innovative product development and alterations of all products with a certain function to people in general. It includes everything from lamps, door handles, coat hangers, spectacles and sun glasses to sinks, taps, dispensers and perfume bottles.
Product design by Bønnelycke MDD is characterised by curiosity and uncompromising thoroughness. We apply rapid prototyping as part of our outlining process which allows for concretisation of product specifications at a very early stage in the process. The fact that our product designs are often used in large interior decorating assignments provides us with a unique opportunity to test them. They will subsequently be either in demand, commented upon or altered – which ultimately enables us to assess whether they are suited for real manufacturing.
The only competitive parameter left is design. Price and quality are common denominators which anybody can live up to.
Our Commitment to Furniture Design
Furniture design basically includes all items to which we situate our bodies. Simply put: Man needs to sit, eat, sleep and store things. Furniture design is very much about rules: The rules of comfort and movement.
The comfort level can be determined visually and the human eye is very quick when carrying out a screening of the furniture available.
In our work with furniture design, we place emphasis on making the idea behind our furniture designs obvious. Our intentions must not in any way compete with each other or create confusion for any of our designs – if that is the case, we prefer to do more than one design…
Often, a furniture manufacturer will commission us to create a whole new series of furniture or to adapt his manufacturing facilities to his specific requirements. Typical assignments involve the introduction of new materials, new machinery, new types of wooden material or a new type of welding. Our job is to optimise utilisation of the existing potential through design-oriented solutions. Other times, we carry out large interior decorating assignments and find ourselves in need of a chair or storage unit with certain, functional characteristics. Several pieces of such furniture have subsequently gone into production with great success.
What sets our way of working with furniture apart is that we prefer to carry out the process in close cooperation with our customers. Often, we have benefited from illustrating our ideas step by step during the developing process and before they go into production. Finished prints have a tendency to appear untouchable. That is why we share our ideas as early as the sketching phase while the project is still wide open.
The Way We Work with Graphic Design
Graphic design represents the icing on the cake of a product. It conveys an immediate signal of what your product is about, the genre and price group to which it belongs. Graphic identity is like a music sheet: It offers direction but the notes should not be on your mind once the music is playing.
Identity is not something you create: It is something you have – and show. At Bønnelycke MDD, the graphic work is a fully integrated part of interior decorating, store concepts, product design and furniture design. The fact that we have integrated the graphic aspect as an in-house function enables us to handle projects from A to Z. Consequently, the graphic part of the identity is not something we merely stick on in the eleventh hour.
It is, with graphic identity as it is with ”the one and only” – it is the beginning of a long relationship. Often, Bønnelycke MDD has been commissioned to update an already existing logo. The old identity is brought up to contemporary standards while remaining recognisable. This calls for special consideration and carefulness because the best characteristics must be maintained. The logo establishes a company and immediately places it within a certain genre, hierarchy, and in the right league.
At Bønnelycke MDD, we are happy to accept assignments exclusively related to graphic design.
Logos, names, stationary, business cards, trade fair presentations, invoices, posters, advertisements, brochures, catalogues, post cards, packaging graphics, anniversary books, covers, menus, show cards, napkins,
door signs, product sheets, labels, websites, banners, magazine designs etc.