Juan Vicondo, winner and versatile designer
11 / 10 / 2019
The career of a designer is made up of different moments in time that, years later, end up being critical in their professional path. An iconic design that marked an era, a stay in another country, or their work as a junior designer in this or that company. We at Roca One Day Design Challenge would like the participation in the competition to be one of those key experiences.
This might be the case of Juan Vicondo, an industrial designer born in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina. Juan won the third prize in the Argentinian edition of 2019, thanks to his project LAM, a hair washing accessory. But in his case, Juan already had a professional career and a previous experience of more than three years. When he participated in the competition, he has already finished his studies, he had lived in Barcelona and had worked for Anima Barcelona, a famous design studio with clients all around the world and amazing projects such as power tools for Bosch and Makita. He had also worked for Zobele España in Barcelona, a multinational corporation and leader in the development and manufacturing of products, a key partner of the main household and personal care companies. It was in this company that he designed an air purifier, which continues to be tested to validate its capacity to purify air. This started as a commercial opportunity for the Asian market, as over there the pollution in large cities generates very harmful air conditions. In order to counteract this situation, citizens are used to this type of devices, such as masks, purifiers and other solutions. The air purifier "Respiro" bases its design on the recharge of the filter, which is the core element around which all other elements are structured. “Respiro” also offers the advantage of releasing a fragrance into the environment in addition to filtering the air. It is an air purifier for small spaces.
Juan’s participation in the contest might end up being a key moment in his career, although we don’t know it yet. Surely it was a positive experience. For the time being, it seems he has a bright future as a designer, as during his time in Europe, Juan was awarded with the “European product design” and the RVID international train design contest (gold award).