Paris born and Beirut raised, David Raffoul studied Interior Architecture in Lebanon and Industrial Design at SPD. David completed the internship at the Studio Marco Piva in Milan, then he moved to Nendo’s design studio in Tokyo.
He has been working as a designer at Fabrica, the comunication reseach center of the Benetton group in Treviso, Italy. Back in Beirut, in 2011 he co-founded with the SPD colleague Nicolas Moussalem the david/nicolas studio.
Milan, with all of the attractions and inspiring things for a designer, had always attracted me. I was particularly interested in SPD because of the complete and interesting programme it offers in slightly more than one year of study. Also, the relatively small scale of the institution, with students coming from many countries.
Professionalism, for the way they taught us to express ourselves and present in front of a big company: how to show our ideas, what to show in a presentation in order to be impactful and convincing. Managing a collaboration, for the ability to engage in dialogue, share and accept ideas with your colleagues is one of the most important thing in this job. Actually it’s all about entering real life.
It was my favourite project, the Mimo lamp for Nemo, a brand that was part of the Cassina group. The whole process was interesting. And the opportunity of showing our design to such a company was very motivating.
Don’t wait for someone to tell you what to do! Just be curious and express the potential of your design as much as possible.