Design as brand strategy: Patrick Norguet

Most designers talk about form; Patrick Norguet talks about strategy. His Paris studio, founded in 2000, states its method plainly: product design must belong to a global strategy, built on analysis of the brand and of the people who will use the object. It is the approach that has kept American clients such as Bernhardt, RH and Janus et Cie on a roster that also includes Cassina and Hermès — and it explains why his objects persuade discreetly instead of chasing attention.

The same discipline sits in the Mak stool he designed for Lapalma in 2012: La Mercanti puts it to work on American executive floors and in hospitality corners, where a bar-height seat has to look right in the background of every meeting.