Alex Koban

Alex Koban, born in 1956 of Austrian descent (Salzburg), arrives in Italy during the 80s and starts expressing his artistic inclination in advertisement, photography and graphic design. His multifaceted creativity and his past experience as a painter are what stirs him today to discover a new art form. Koban takes objects and reduces them as if they were graphic signs, through different materials such as wood, iron and fiberglass. He doesn’t identify himself as either an artist, a on object or graphic designer, but as something in between of all these three categories. A surprising union that highlights his many talents and his will to take on challenges, without restrictions and with impetuous soul, in the search of something new.

Here on Debou, we present his first design furniture collection, in which the material is the protagonist, in its purity and essentiality.

A short description of your collection.

My design is characterised by linearity, essentiality and simplicity. It’s in these traits that you can recognize my origins as graphic designer. I love to experiment with simple and basic materials such as iron and wood. Mine is a domesticated industrial design!

What inspires you?

It comes from the need for something that is not there and the will to change what surrounds me. I observe and object and manage to see a different use for it, away from the originally intended one.

Your style in three words.

Clean. Simple. Essential. Lessi s more!

Detail makes a difference... What’s yours?

I take an object and transform it in something else. The detail that makes the difference in in the point of view!

Which object do you wish to design?

Ever since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to design a car. I’ve always liked the idea of a modular car, something sectional, to be assembled by anyone depending on the day and the mood. A sort of lego/car always ready to go. Modularity, combinability!

If your brand was a song?

The Blues Brothers 4ever!