Duotone Diversity Magazine No.02 2020

I have always been curious about the details. Sometimes it takes numerous samples to match the color as I have imagined. I guess not many people do that. When I think about how often people around the world favor Duotone products, it makes me happy to know that my work is part of that admiration. I believe building things is an essential part of stimulating someone’s creativity. I grew up in Hamburg, Germany, surrounded by many possibilities to do exactly that. I had access to a workshop, a garden, tools, and materials, as well as parents who supported my ideas. This childhood exploration provided a foundation for my interests to develop and gave me direction to follow my imagination towards future pursuits. After an internship in architecture, I realized it was not all that I had originally imagined. Then I discovered an “Industrial Design” degree program, which sounded very interesting. After exploring Universities that offered this program, I was quite impressed with the “Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste, Stuttgart,” where I inevitably studied. The University is a small institution with a great heritage and lots and lots of workshops and opportunities to build, design, and create nearly anything. During this time, I met Aurelien “Lou” Mierswa, who had studied in the same program two years prior. We became good friends, and coincidentally, he was the one who drew my attention to the possibility of working at Duotone (North back then…). When I graduated, Diploma in hand, Lou was already working for the brand, and when a job vacancy opened in late 2010, he suggested that I apply and become part of the team in Munich. This new position seemed to be very exciting, offering low hierarchies with a young, passionate, relatively small team and a direct connection to the sports industry. I started working for Duotone in November, juggling both marketing and product development. In marketing, I was mainly responsible for creating, conceptualizing, designing ads and catalogs, as well as organizing and executing photo shootings. Additionally, I shared product development projects with Lou. From the beginning, we combined our strengths. He focused on the intricacy of 3D design, and I focused on Color & Style, which worked great due to our different skill sets. Over the time, the quantity and complexity of our products advanced. Product development continually expanded, and when Tom Kaiser joined our marketing team in November 2011, I slowly relinquished my involvement in marketing, focusing my efforts on conceptual ventures. After this transition, I was able to fully concentrate on product design, color concepts, and graphic design, which we developed with great support from our long term design agency 3Deluxe. A few years later, I started contributing visual design concepts to Duotone Windsurfing, followed by the involvement with Fanatic and ION Design. Today, I work as the creative director at Duotone with three product designers. Together, we influence the brand’s style, helping to direct product managers while also being challenged by what seems like a million small tasks that pop up on our desks daily. It is a hands-on job that requires teamwork and a collective team effort. Sometimes we spend hours in front of the Pantone Box, matching colors and finding new combinations that reflect the current design scheme. Every season we release new graphic designs, confronted with the challenge of analyzing and attempting to foresee future trends and how we will implement these concepts into product designs. For me, fashion is a great inspiration, even though it is a fast-moving and continuously fluctuating industry. Additionally, I also get a great deal of design and visual influence from nature. For example, I recently passed a flower nearby our surfboard production facility, and by chance, the plant provided me with the inspiration for a new colorway. When I think about having been with Duotone for almost ten years now, it sometimes feels surreal … In a good way… After all these years, I can still confidently profess my passion for my job, and although it is quite challenging and sometimes stressful, working for Duotone is a perfect match for me. FLORIANPANTHER, 37 CREATIVE DIRECTOR Being able to make life better for people and to know that my design has an influence on people’s daily lives has always fascinated me. It makes me proud to be able to enhance people’s well-being. Before I came to Duotone Kiteboarding, I worked for a classic design agency in Solingen, Germany, where the focus was on Bath, Kitchen and Electronics. I designed everything from bathtubs and toilets to cutlery, food containers and storage systems. I loved seeing my designs purchased, knowing that people will actually use it. Sports has always been my other passion in life. Movement, body control and acrobatics, the things a human body is capable of, inspire me. Besides being a dancer, I have also taught fitness, acrobatics, and dance since 2013 and I’ve always dreamt about merging both of my passions into my job. So clearly, Solingen wasn’t meant for my future. Additionally, my boyfriend was living in Bavaria, which didn’t make it easier. That was the ultimate argument for me to quit the job and take the opportunity to bring everything together – love, passion and work. Initially, I was aiming for a job in sports medicine. I felt this would be the perfect opportunity to satisfy my aspiration to improve products while at the same time, it would still have the connection to sports. Designing prostheses was what I originally had had in mind. The day I moved to Weilheim, Bavaria, to live with my boyfriend, Duotone placed a job advertisement – they were looking for a product manager. Although I wasn’t kiteboarding at the time, I gave it a shot. Who would’ve thought that it would fit so perfectly? During my interview, I learned that the main focus would be to improve the Entity Binding – that was more or less exactly what I wanted to do in the first place as it’s quite similar to something like a prosthesis. On the other hand, my Chinese roots and thus my language skills were something Duotone was quite happy to gain. Being born and raised in China, I have a certain Chinese attitude; if I want something, I will do everything to achieve it. No matter if it is studying Automotive Engineering in Beijing, where the ratio of men to women was 7 to 1, learning German to be able to study Industrial Design in Germany or even starting to kiteboard to better understand the product I’d be responsible for. Although, I have to admit that learning how to kiteboard was the least amount of effort. I enjoyed steering the kite from the first minute onwards – it made me reminisce about my childhood days when we used to fly small kites in China. Even though I am still a beginner, it gives me a feeling of total freedom. Other than the will to work hard and remain intently focused, this is as much Chinese as it gets with me. Sometimes I feel that I turned out to be more German than anything else – I would definitely consider myself a Bavarian local rather than a Chinese one. After all, I studied engineering – how German can it get!? So even though I wasn’t the typical kiter, I started working for Duotone Kiteboarding. And although it takes me 2 hours one way every day to get to the office, I wouldn’t want to miss this job. I feel like finally I can make use of my full potential and qualities. I am more into product management than solely design which makes this position a great fit. Being responsible for the development of Duotone’s kite bindings, the Entity and the Vario, as well as the boots, I can now focus on improving and perfecting products for sportspeople, I can help them enjoy their sports without having to sacrifice their health. A very satisfying feeling. Additionally, I am in close contact with our producers in China, which is easy for me since after all, it is home. Chinese is my mother tongue which helps a lot when discussing production procedures, possibilities for new materials or finding solutions for problems that might occur. The only downside is that I don’t get to dance as much as I used to but that only means that I have more time to focus on my kiting skills! XUERAO ZHANG, 37 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Photos Frank Stolle 59 P E O P L E P E O P L E 58 I N S I D E D U O T O N E