Very Simple Kitchen is inspired by the minimalism and straight lines of Italy’s industrial heritage and was founded with the desire to reinvent the kitchen’s space. The products are a combination of industrial style and simple forms with careful attention paid to the use of colours, materials, and finishings. C41 Magazine had the privilege of interviewing the company’s Founder Riccardo Randi at Salone del Mobile 2024.

Luca A. Caizzi: Let me start by asking you how design came to you and how you came to design.

Riccardo Randi: It was a very particular and organic path. After four years of engineering in Bologna, I started my product design course at IED. My Erasmus experience in Lisbon was a crucial moment for my approach to design. After finishing my product design studies I was already doing communication projects, organising events, and being offered internships that I understood were not for me; So, for five years I did something else. Until I had to redo my kitchen at home and I had the idea of taking industrial tables, the ones from metalworkers, and giving them a reinterpretation. That’s where my path with design began. The project I had done for my kitchen was starting to get a lot of positive feedback until I presented it at Paris Design Week 2016 and got in touch with this new community. At that time I had not yet founded my kitchen brand but I already had Instagram profile, logo, and website having my own business idea. Then thanks to the knowledge of new people and the human relationships created with them, from suppliers to customers I grew and developed Very Simple Kitchen to the fullest.

LAC: Make your kitchen different, make it simple. Your name, before your mantra, defines the stylistic and material approach to your work. What should a kitchen look like to define itself as simple?

RR: For me, it means having a kitchen without too many layers that go beyond what is functionality, I like functional design but I also like the emotion that a product can give you. In the products we try to make, there are both of these elements, from the iconic essence to the humanisation of design products. Creating interactions between design products and people is fundamental and unique!”

LAC: Let’s start talking about the new collaboration you will present during this new week at Convey with Red-Duo. What is it all about?

RR: This is a kitchen, completely out of what is our standard production we are talking about a much more handcraft project, in fact, Red-Duo’s approach is more related to the material. At first, it didn’t seem to go best with our modular philosophy,
but we managed to find a compromise for the semi-industrialisation part of the industrial process. We work with a craftsman who does a hundred percent custom, creating products that have a huge technical difficulty that only industry and company could do, however, with an optimisation of warehouse and production. I really enjoy the direct relationship with the supplier, that’s the part I enjoy the most! The public has also found it these days, perceiving both elements, on the one hand craftsmanship on the other Very Simple Kitchen.”

LAC: All the pieces you design and produce can be defined by adjectives that best describe the contemporary design market: flexible, colourful, quality. Which adjective would you like to work on in the near future?

RR: Expansion and Development! About the future, there are many things we want to do, on a strategic level. One of them is to go beyond the kitchen and develop the company both on the way of furniture and objects that make us feel good. This development is possible because of the very large community that has formed over time. The goal is to expand the core of the company 360 degrees!”

LAC: Who are your heroes or heroines in design? Who has inspired you?

RR: The first emotional response that comes to mind is that there is no specific person, I am in love with Design! And its simplicity like a mass-produced, stackable plastic chair. On the level of a character who is not a designer but for me is very important for my personal and geographical history is Dino Gavina originally from Bologna, like me! Gavino has always been a businessman and creative example for my career.”