Interview and photos by Elif Kahveci

More photos can be accessed here.

We have been invited to the creative world of Hazal Balasar, who looks at design through a wide spectrum. Balasar is the ‘heart’ of BetterThings, the design office she founded with her partner Elif Lütfiye Çakır to make the world a ‘better’ place, and the designer of Paşabahçe’s Omnia series. She is also the style editor of Marie Claire Maison magazine.

Can you share with us any outlets that you follow and are inspired by?

There are a lot of people and outlets whose work I like. For example, timeless publications like Kinfolk and Cereal Mag. I always follow new publications from publishers like Gestalten, Assouline to stay up-to-date, although it is impossible to collect all of their books. I also follow online magazines and blogs such as WGSN, Refinery29, Dezeen, Sight Unseen.

How did your mind and perspective evolve after you started designing?

In school, no one taught us ‘design thinking’. Years later, IDEO’s head designer David Kelley said in an interview, “Design thinking does not only develop your designs, but everything you do in other aspects of life,” and I figured out that the education I get is a process that affects every aspect of my life.

I think that the actual value that design education provides is to adopt an approach based on empathy, by teaching you to ask the right questions and strengthening your observational skills. The process we call creativity is a state of questioning and answering that feeds from user behaviour, action, emotion, story and history. Your design begins to be valuable once little nuances appear on discovering what the person in front of you needs. You need to have concerns in order to be able to design. This questioning and answering state turns into a habit after a while, and you find yourself asking these questions and being concerned about a lot of things all the time in cafes and exhibitions you visit; in all aspects of life.

Do you have any routines or habits that are formed by your identity as a designer?

I’ve started taking more notes. Designing also means connecting the invisible dots between things. There is a problem, a feeling, a story there. When you combine these, a product appears. You become watchful of these dots to discover; your awareness develops.

Your work covers different fields. In terms of both product and concept design, how do you begin and how does the process unfold? What sort of differences appear?

For me, it actually starts with finding the story; the thing I am concerned about on both areas. When I am designing a product, I come up with more keywords during the process. Concept design has less of a sketching process in contrast to product design, since it is not constrained with factors like material. The work in concept design, by its very nature, is more focused on presentation and marketing; hence it is more easily consumed. It satisfies me to both create the product and to create a visual world.

You won the IF DESIGN and Red Dot design awards with the ‘Chill’ whiskey glass and carafe design you created for Paşabahçe’s Nude collection. Can you tell us the story behind ‘Chill’?

When I graduated, I plotted my career far from product design. I designed my first product ‘Chill’ through encouragement from our director Emre Bozbeyli at Paşabahçe’s design department, where I started working as a graphic designer. 

‘Chill’ actually has an emotional and functional unity, and creates an interaction between the past and present in terms of how it emerged. I learned that the much familiar saying ‘whiskey on the rocks’ actually came from the old times when people used rocks from the ocean to cool the whiskey instead of putting ice on it. This little information was distinctive for me in terms of form, material and feeling. 

‘Chill’ consists of two pieces. The marble base was designed to keep the liquid that has been chilled in the freezer cool and fresh without diluting it with water. Marble is a fast cooling material because of its structure. The global form in the base of the glass provides a natural movement that enhances the aroma and taste of the drink. The relationship of the glass and the base and the way it made users feel it can be touched was very important to me independently from the marble piece. While the glass provides a fun and smooth finish with its global form at its end, the marble peace provides a sleek and sturdy base. 

Getting an award with my first produced design has motivated me to always continue product design as a part of my career. It would be fair to say that I decided to always have a place for product design in my life through ‘Chill’.

You were one of the designers of Paşabahçe’s Omnia collection in 2018. Can we hear the ‘İbrik’ (Ottoman Pitcher) and the ‘Testi’ (Jug) you have designed within the theme of water?

Omnia series is created every two years with a different theme and designers. The theme of 2018 was water.

We forgot how valuable water is since it flows infinitely from the taps in our homes. In truth, humanity is quickly depleting the resources of the world and it is very difficult to turn around from that. 

There are many cultures in which water has been carried from the source to homes with difficulty, when people spent serious time and effort for this, and water was seen as something holy. Easy access to water really changed our perspective towards it. Today water is a scarce resource again and we need things to remind us of this fact. Jug and Ottoman pitcher are cult objects used to carry and present water in our homes; jug ever since primitive times, and Ottoman pitcher since the Ottoman Empire. The main idea in Omnia for me was to reinterpret and somehow include in our lives once again these objects that have been typologically erased from our lives long ago. 

The Ottoman pitcher is a very graphical object for me. So I was inspired by the Memphis Group, and designed a product that resembles a sculpture. The jug was designed with a more modern understanding, and the glass cutting works on it were inspired by motifs on jugs made from mud.

Which designers would you like to collaborate with?

First names that come to mind are Masquespacio and Formafantasma.

As a graduate of industrial design what advice and warning would you give to your student self from where you stand right now?

Industry and school are very different worlds. I can emphasise the importance of broadening your mind first. I think that once they get the fundamentals of design there are no limits to what students can do in different areas. The subject of design moves parallel to the concerns of the designer, and even if the problem changes, the methodology of the creation process is very similar. That’s why you should navigate in a field you like and can internalise. 

It is also obviously crucial to explore a lot of other works. Following trends without ignoring the ‘know-how’ besides creativity is key.

Where does the Istanbul Design Biennial stand in terms of the design scene in Turkey?

The Istanbul Design Biennial has an important mission to put design into the lives of people who have no familiarity with the field, and to make them question it. I think the spaces that the biennial spreads has a big impact on this. It is very valuable that even someone who passes by is ‘exposed to’ the biennial and to design in locations that have a lot of traffic. 

The biennial creates an awareness on its own just by putting design into the daily flow of the city dwellers.

We would also like to hear about your future projects. What are your concerns right now?

We are planning a narrative as BetterThings with my partner Elif, where we integrate product design to our work as well. As millennials, our values, perspective towards life, consumption and products have evolved towards a very different way than prior generations. We are aiming to form the foundations for a brand that focuses on the Generation Y.