WIP Could you do a little introduction about yourself? 
E&E We are Elias and Erlend. We run a small design studio called Travers. Besides that, we also work at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, teaching interaction design and service design. In our studio, we work with interaction design and service design mainly. We say that we work with design and society. That means that we work a lot with the public sector. We work a bit with state actors, but we also have love for municipalities. We've been travelling around Norway trying to introduce design to fields that have never touched design, at least in a sense that's not like designer furniture or designer things, but people that are new to the design way of working.

I think when we talk about design, it's like a broad expression about a process of how to go about things, like being user-centric, starting with the user, trying to explore broadly to find multiple alternatives to what can be and to work iteratively, testing out, using prototypes in processes that might be used to a different kind of method.

WIP Where and how did you find out what the right process for you was?
E&E We did a master's in design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The course had a focus on product design—like, physical things—and then it transitioned into interaction design and more digital design, and out of that, service design. So I think the school has taught us various strands of the design process.

But I think for us, we've sort of found our own take on how to do that process. Returning to the first project we did in our third year, we worked with Ruter, the transport agency of Oslo, on how we could integrate walking into their systems and their overall experience. And I think that was like a start for us to see how we can work together, how we can combine creativity with structure, which is, I think, is something that you always have to balance.

Also, we did a side project when we went to school called Boden, where we—together with two of our friends from class—went sort of nuts with branding, and we basically designed thousands of logos and put them on anything that we could find and just try to really stretch what that means. And that was also a way of figuring out, like, how does branding work, how do we perceive things? What is a product, and what is a prototype? And although we don't do branding now, I think that mindset helps us when we work with the municipalities. It's not the same as making a cool T-shirt to be released at a pop-up, but I think it's more comparable than people think, in a sense.

WIP We talked a bit earlier today, that you had a niche definition of design. Could you elaborate on that?
E&E I don't know how niche it is, but I think it differs a bit from the traditional graphic design way of looking at design or the industrial design way of looking at design. I think for us; design is about designing choices for people. If you choose this or that, if you travel by this or this mode of transport, and all those things, the reason we decide on something instead of another—we think has something to do with how it's designed, how it looks, how it feels, how it suits you.

And I think, that for us, we want to take on big and complex matters with that approach. And you can also say for the public sector in Norway that they also have sort of big problem coming up with people that are getting older, as people always have been, but that's also challenging the welfare state.

So if you want that kind of budget to go smoothly, then you'll have to do something with the processes in the public sector and you have to change how things are done. And we think that we could also use design in that context because design is basically about trying to shape alternatives to the situation we have today.

If you think about design, that's like a behavioural thing that we can do something about.

WIP When you work in multidisciplinary teams, all these people usually have a different approach or a different design process. How is it like to start working like this? And what is the most important thing you've learned by working across various disciplines?
E&E I think one of the things is being prepared, going through “what are we doing? How would you like to approach this?”— making a good start on the project. But also, at least for most of our projects, we’ve been in charge of the process. Meaning it’s all framed within a design process, the Double Diamond Process for those who know that. That’s four main phases which kind of frame the whole project. The first phase is where we explore and try to understand the problem. And then, you define a new way of seeing the problem based on what you’ve learned. And then, you start exploring different ways of solving that problem, and then you test it, try to implement it, and deliver it.

So within all those phases, you can explore together what the problem is, and then you can define together “how do we see it?”. Then you can do different ways of exploring it. I think the process allows for different approaches as long as you have some overarching structure to it.

The design process itself is meant to be open. So we don’t know what we’re going to do when we start. We don’t know how we are going to solve the problem. I think that allows for a lot of different disciplines.

WIP When you work in multidisciplinary teams, all these people usually have a different approach or a different design process. How is it like to start working like this? And what is the most important thing you've learned by working multidisciplinary?
E&E I think one of the things is being prepared, going through “what are we doing? How would you like to approach this?”—doing a good start on the project. But I also think, at least for most of our projects, we’ve been in charge of the process. So it’s all framed within a design process, the double diamond process for those who know that. That’s four main phases which kind of frame the whole project. The first phase is where we explore and try to understand the problem. And then, you define a new way of seeing the problem based on what you’ve learned. And then, you start exploring different ways of solving that problem, and then you test it, try to implement it, and deliver it.

So within all those phases, you can explore together what the problem is, and then you can define together “how do we see it?”. Then you can do different ways of exploring it. I think the process allows for different approaches as long as you have some overarching structure to it.

The design process is in itself meant to be open. So we don’t know what we’re going to do when we start. We don’t know how we are going to solve the problem. I think that allows for a lot of different disciplines.

WIP You mentioned that you didn't feel that you looked like you fit in anywhere specifically, and that maybe that makes you think that design isn't for you, or it's easy to think that. So I think it's, it's nice to, like, highlight that is it is possible to, like, carve your own path.
E&E Yeah, exactly. I think that's an essential thing to say; if you're a designer and you feel that this isn't right for me, just try to question why you think that it's not right for you. It could be because of the organization you're in or the project that you're doing. Not necessarily the methods and being.

But that's the main reason we started something ourselves — we didn't feel that we fit in the different studios. And it's not to say that they're like super weird. It's just that, like, Oh, that's cool, but I wish it was a bit more like that. And as a designer, you have the ability to shape things. So that's the project to create your own studio, which could have been a brief that you got, make your own design studio, so you have the skills that are needed. And I think even more than a lot of other professions, like economy and accounting, you can kind of learn these days.

It's also important to have something driving or motivating you. That's the main reason we bother to do our own tax accounting or tax reports; because we like the other stuff. You can't learn motivation. It has to be something that you feel.

WIP Your name Travers, what does it really mean?
E&E So, the name Travers comes from rock climbing, and it means to go horizontally on vertical terrain. So instead of going straight up, you move to the side. So you're basically finding alternative routes. And that's what we're trying to do, finding an alternative route for design. That seems pretty grand, but for us to explore an alternative route, what could that be? And starting your own studio is doing exactly that. You're forced to do things differently. So that's also part of our whole.

Yeah, it's just a reminder that we want to explore different possibilities and potentials in what design can contribute—and the name keeps us in check.

travers.as
@travers.lab