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Richard de Lancey
Head of Design
Thinking Out of the Box
Richard leads Royal Selangor's in-house design studio of product designers, sculptors and graphic artists.
“I enjoy exploring what we can do with pewter. It’s a very versatile material. You can do sleek modern designs as well as intricate ones. And nowadays we’re mixing pewter with different materials like glass, porcelain and wood to make products which are more attractive and useful to customers,” says Richard. His formal training in product engineering from Loughborough University has helped him create beautiful products for his customers.
Recently, Richard, with the help of Royal Selangor's engineering team, started to rethink and redesign the packaging for all products yet keeping the presentation to commensurate to the brand.
He explains, “I have an interest in sustainable design. During my spare time, I design and build furniture from recycled wood and plastic. When I came to Royal Selangor, I thought of making our product packaging smaller, lighter and friendlier to the environment.
Hence, we aim towards zero use of non-biodegradable material by eliminating the foam and plastic contents. Then there’s less for customers to take home, less waste in the bin. It also reduces the carbon footprint during transport because it’s not heavy and bulky.
When all this is fully implemented, it’ll go a long way to reducing our impact on the environment. We started using this form of packing in our latest hip flask collection, Ink.”
Like most, he and his team were gravely impacted by the pandemic and its effects on the movement of people.
“We had just over a day to ensure that our operations and projects were not disrupted when the Malaysian government announced the Movement Control Order back in March. This involved moving some bulky equipment off site so that we could still continue to work remotely. Some of us even volunteered to lug 3D printers home so we can produce prototypes. We were scattered. Our access to resources was limited. But the show must go on, right?” Richard reminisces.
”Our people were real troopers. They adapted to working from home quickly, sending drawings, sculpts, prototypes to one another via the ride-sharing service, and thanks to them, we have new collections to show our customers.”
One of the new ranges that the Royal Selangor design team had developed during this lockdown is Phonos, a collection of passive amplifiers for the mobile phone, made from wood and pewter.
“I’ve been in the habit of using my phone for video and conference calls since working from my home office. I was looking for something that can hold my phone perfectly in position at a convenient distance instead of building make-shift tripods to prop my phone up. At the same time, I wanted to do something influenced by retro design. And voila, Phonos was born!” Explains Richard.
As Royal Selangor moves into a time marked by great change, Richard and other creative talents will play a greater role in ensuring that its products continue to capture the hearts of its customers.
“I enjoy exploring what we can do with pewter. It’s a very versatile material. You can do sleek modern designs as well as intricate ones. And nowadays we’re mixing pewter with different materials like glass, porcelain and wood to make products which are more attractive and useful to customers,” says Richard. His formal training in product engineering from Loughborough University has helped him create beautiful products for his customers.
Recently, Richard, with the help of Royal Selangor's engineering team, started to rethink and redesign the packaging for all products yet keeping the presentation to commensurate to the brand.
He explains, “I have an interest in sustainable design. During my spare time, I design and build furniture from recycled wood and plastic. When I came to Royal Selangor, I thought of making our product packaging smaller, lighter and friendlier to the environment.
Hence, we aim towards zero use of non-biodegradable material by eliminating the foam and plastic contents. Then there’s less for customers to take home, less waste in the bin. It also reduces the carbon footprint during transport because it’s not heavy and bulky.
When all this is fully implemented, it’ll go a long way to reducing our impact on the environment. We started using this form of packing in our latest hip flask collection, Ink.”
Like most, he and his team were gravely impacted by the pandemic and its effects on the movement of people.
“We had just over a day to ensure that our operations and projects were not disrupted when the Malaysian government announced the Movement Control Order back in March. This involved moving some bulky equipment off site so that we could still continue to work remotely. Some of us even volunteered to lug 3D printers home so we can produce prototypes. We were scattered. Our access to resources was limited. But the show must go on, right?” Richard reminisces.
”Our people were real troopers. They adapted to working from home quickly, sending drawings, sculpts, prototypes to one another via the ride-sharing service, and thanks to them, we have new collections to show our customers.”
One of the new ranges that the Royal Selangor design team had developed during this lockdown is Phonos, a collection of passive amplifiers for the mobile phone, made from wood and pewter.
“I’ve been in the habit of using my phone for video and conference calls since working from my home office. I was looking for something that can hold my phone perfectly in position at a convenient distance instead of building make-shift tripods to prop my phone up. At the same time, I wanted to do something influenced by retro design. And voila, Phonos was born!” Explains Richard.
As Royal Selangor moves into a time marked by great change, Richard and other creative talents will play a greater role in ensuring that its products continue to capture the hearts of its customers.