“In Eindhoven, it’s easier to find a designer than a bakery”

Christoph Brach (Raw Color) is the first in a series of designers who was allowed to play with a video of 36.5 seconds with the Eindhoven “vibes”. In this interview he explains what drives him and why he and Daniera ter Haar (Raw Color) are still stuck in the city that also trained them as designers: Eindhoven.

“The good thing about Eindhoven is the freedom of movement it offers. Plus the fact that the city and the people living in it are not pretentious. Over here, things simply get made or done, instead of talking endlessly about how great they could be. This place is always buzzing with activity. And there is great room to play, literally as well as figuratively speaking. After we graduated we considered leaving for Berlin or Rotterdam, but in the end we made a conscious decision to stay here. To be part of the ongoing endeavour.

The lines are short within the local design community. It’s a close-knit and well-organised network. In relative terms, of course, it’s very big. Sometimes we joke about how in Eindhoven it’s easier to find a designer than a bakery.

There are lots of lovely seeds being sown right now, but the trick is that we continue taking the next steps so that we can end up with a plentiful harvest. The city could use some more diversity, in its cafés and restaurants for instance. If we get the freedom to create that, the town’s DIY-mentality will ensure that it is successful. The best results are achieved in places that bubble and fizz with ideas.

We immediately felt we wanted to make something that was very abstract, instead of documentary-like. A work that came from within ourselves, that we would be able to create in the studio. We also wanted to have a big fun factor. It led to this work, which is a very cheerful, creative expression of science. Of course it has been done a thousand times before, but because it has been given an identity of its own it becomes something unique. We ran a great number of tests using different soft drinks and colours. Some were amazingly successful, others very disappointing. But all of them produced a great big mess.