For Joel Escalona, the world is a place of unlimited inspiration. A tad. a pan: You will find everyday products like these in the portfolio of the Mexican designer. Why? Because it's people that inspire him - and given there are over seven billion in the world, that makes tor quite a number of inspiring subjects, and an even higher number or possible ideas. How can ideas help people? This is one of desian's most fundamental questions.

BALANCE: Joel Escalona's new project at leading art fair: ZⓢONAMACO

Questioning why something should be a certain way or meet expectations - which have been formed through stereotypes - is always challenging. Observation is fundamental for any designer. Designing an object with a function is also essential. Shouldn't all objects meet an aesthetic purpose and artistic value? This should be a basic principle.

Studio portrait by Brett Gundlock

Sketches are quick, timely, inexpensive, disposable and plentiful, have a clear vocabulary, have a constrained gesture and an appropriate degree of refinement, are ambiguous and more important “suggest & explore rather than confirm” — sketches don’t “tell” they “suggest”*