Interview: Katie Treggiden, design champion

Somehow, in the midst of all this, Katie recently decided to launch her own monthly Design Book Club. ‘I’ve been a massive reader ever since I was a tiny little child,’ she divulged recently. Unlike most book clubs, though, this group meets virtually on Twitter, chatting via the hashtag #designbookclub. The first ‘meeting’ took place in early January with the group collectively reading Tim Smit’s Eden, which looks at the planning and execution of the Eden Project biodomes in Cornwall. 

Next on deck will be The Craftsman by Richard Sennett (the discussion will take place 4 February at 9pm UK time) followed by Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises by Cameron Sinclair in early March. To ensure forthcoming titles are worth talking about, Katie reads ahead; she says she considers Sennet’s tome ‘one of those well-thumbed books that’s got bits underlined and corners folded down’ and calls Sinclair’s book ‘mind-blowingly brilliant’. With all of the selections, she is looking for books that will inspire and educate. 

When Zetteler’s founder Sabine met Katie a few years ago, the two forged an instant connection based on a mutual appreciation for good design. ‘We're both interested not only in how things look, but how well they work and what they're for,’ Sabine describes. ‘Her enthusiasm is infectious, but it also has a sense of worth.’ 

In honour of all that Katie does, we caught up with her to talk about the book club and Fiera (the third issue of which was published at the end of 2015):

I am a member of a fairly geeky literary fiction book club – we only read books that have been nominated for literature prizes! I absolutely love it, because I’ve read books I probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise, I’ve learned loads, I’ve had fascinating conversations with interesting people, and it’s made me read more. 

I was finding that I was getting through the book club book in about two weeks. So I thought, ‘Ooh, interesting!’ and I started trying to read a design book in between the book club books. Of course, without the discipline of a design book club, that wasn’t always happening, so I thought a design book club would make sure I was reading those books as well. I’m a big believer in continually learning and honing your craft. I don’t think any of us are ever done. I really want to learn more about what I do for a living. I’ve read some really inspiring books that I wanted to share with people. Part of what confessions of a design geek is all about is inspiring new designers, so I thought it was a nice fit to do it through the blog.

So many things are London-focused. Not everybody can get to London for reasons of geography, but also even people in London, for example people with young children, find it difficult to get into town in the evenings for things like book clubs. Doing it online makes it accessible to everybody.

Yes, it was absolutely brilliant, it was so inspiring. The book is about the Eden Project in Cornwall and how Tim Smit made it happen and what was interesting was how everybody who took part had taken slightly different things out of the book. So it was really interesting to then discuss that and get other viewpoints – it added another layer that you wouldn’t have got from reading that book on your own. 

It’s an amazing place, and even more amazing when you realise what it took to make it happen. Smit talks about two things I love: One is the Tinkerbell Theory. Tinkerbell in Peter Pan only existed if people believed in her. His Tinkerbell Theory is that you can make anything happen if you can convince enough people to believe in it. The other is his Last Man Standing Theory, which he describes as turning ‘becoming an awkward bugger into an art form’ – ie not taking no for an answer; you just keep going and going until you make it happen. 

I grew up in Cornwall, so it’s really important to me to champion Cornish design. I decided to spend most of December there last year, visiting new designers, craftspeople and makers, so we had a post on the blog every day about a different creative person in Cornwall. As the book club launched during this time, it made sense that the first book was about Cornwall and for it to be part of that celebration of all the thriving creative community in Cornwall. 

I came into this world as a blogger, so I spent five years doing online publishing before publishing in print, and I certainly had a lot of things published by other people online before I started getting published in magazines and newspapers. So it goes without saying that I am a big fan of online! But there is still a reverence for print that there just isn’t for online. Part of it is just getting sucked into that smell of new paper, but more than that, the different types of publishing play different roles – I’m a big believer in choosing the right medium for the message. 

Fiera could never have been an online publication. The point of Fiera was that a lot of the coverage of design fairs is online, so it is as quick and as intense and as dynamic as the design fairs themselves. And that’s fantastic and has a really important place. But after that had all died down, we were all going back to our day jobs as if nothing had happened. I felt there was a place for a more lasting record of what had happened, and some analysis of what it all meant. As professionals working in this industry, what can we take from that half-year of shows and put back into our practice when we get back to our desks? It’s designed to be a resource with turned down pages and highlighted sections, that people keep on their desks or in their bags. So Fiera had to be a print publication. 

We always do London in the odd issues and Milan in the even issues, and then three other fairs. I try to make sure the other fairs are different each time and I try to include at least one slightly surprising fair. We did the Lodz Design Fair in the first issue, which a lot of people had never heard of. We did Frankfurt – which is a very well known fair – in the second issue, but not necessarily known for upcoming talent. And in issue 3 we did the Northern Design Festival in Newcastle, which I just thought was a wonderful juxtaposition with the Dubai Design Week. There are certain fairs you’ve got to cover like Milan. Everybody goes to Milan, but people can’t possibly see everything, so there’s a role for us there. But it’s also about getting slightly off the beaten track so we’re really showing the whole remit of what’s going on. 

I do get totally overwhelmed! That was another reason for Fiera: these shows are completely overwhelming, it’s almost too much to make sense of. I’m quite a nerdy record-keeper, so I have a system where everything gets photographed on different cameras and on my phone, so everything is categorized. So I’m then able to come back to my desk and quietly start sifting through it and spotting some of the themes and deciding what’s important. There’s a massive editing process: from overwhelm to a magazine. Hopefully it all makes sense by the time it gets to the magazine!

I spent 12 years working in advertising before I became a writer. Towards the end of my career in advertising, I tried on lots of hats. I knew I wanted a more creative career, so I did short courses in photography, web design, pottery, life drawing, furniture design... I studied interior design at KLC, and eventually, I realized what I loved was writing about those things. I’m very lucky in that I’ve found my calling and that’s writing about design – there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.