the search for quality / “imperfect”

Eddy Yu and Hung Lam, two designers from Hong Kong, are also looking for quality on more than just the surface. The designer Hung Lam was asked to create a new collection for the porcelain manufacturer LOVERAMICS. Hung Lam traveled to the Chinese hinterland and visited the Loveramics factories. The access roads were lined left and right with rejects, i.e. plates and cups that couldn’t be sold. But on closer inspection, the crockery turned out to be fully functional. Only tiny black burn marks were visible. Some ash had been blown onto the porcelain during firing and instead of covering up the small black spots, he wrote next to them: i’mperfect.

I’MPERFECT is the name of this concept, a play on the words “imperfect” and “i’m perfect”. This almost ingenious design concept also needs a very courageous porcelain manufacturer to really bring it to market.

The I’MPERFECT project by these two designers not only poses the question of perfection, it also poses the question of whether visual perfection is synonymous with quality. We can ask ourselves this question every day when we go shopping. Is this visually perfect apple not even worse in taste than the apple from the farmers’ market with perhaps a few black spots?