Transforming everyday things into works of art

It all started with a milk glass project. The concept: decorated milk glasses designed by designers, architects and artists – each with a unique concept, feel and story. That was 10 years ago.

Today, the Ritzenhoff range comprises more than 30 collections and has grown from milk glasses to beer, wine, water and champagne glasses, all sorts of coffee and tea cups to products other than glass such as clocks, flower pots, candle holders, Christmas decorations, ashtrays, Teddy bears, bed linen, cushions and bedspreads.

This year, they came up with pepper mills, porcelain containers and have been reviving up the dear old piggy bank.

Its success is not just due to the designs alone. It is the whole package – from the design concept to the image, the unique and attractive packaging, product communi-cations, PR and display. Each product has an interesting, coherently designed box that completes the story of the actual product. Receiving them as a present really brings a smile to one´s face while looking at them evokes different images since each picture relays a different message and story left that inspire imagination.

Each Ritzenhoff shop has a certain look and ambience. Add to all this are the small supplementary products such as beer mats and napkins to complete the look.

The success of Ritzenhoff proves that decoration can sell a product. Sieger Design – the German design company that has been entrusted to develop the design, marketing and PR of Ritzenhoff – hit the jackpot when it decided to convince Ritzenhoff to market their milk glass concept, a project developed for the milk association of the German state of North Rhine Westphalia to produce glasses in order to promote drinking milk.

In 1992, Ritzenhoff presented its first 10 decorated milk glasses, designed by famous artists and designers in a fair in Frankfurt to just a few select clients. The glasses generated an encouraging response from the industry and from the media. The glasses, which were deemed too ordinary in the beginning, were not considered to be sure bestsellers. People in the industry thought that it should be mouth-blown glasses or hand-painted. Sieger told us the rationale. "Beyond the art itself, we always have the basic archetype shape because we do not want our customers to discuss the shape too much. We want to have a pleasurable shape so that the customer shall make his choice based on the decoration."

Having the normal shape also gave manufacturers flexibility since making different shapes would have made the product costly to develop.

The Design Concept

During the press tour of the recently concluded Tendence Lifestyle Fair, Christian Sieger, general manager of Sieger Design, explained the success story of Ritzenhoff.

"We started by getting designers from all over. There’s so much creativity in the world, why limit the design to just the company itself?"

The result was products that appeal to different markets, thanks to the multicultural elements that various designers brought to their designs. Not only that, each collection has its own story line expressed through its motifs. Ritzenhoff has transformed what one considers to be very basic things into fun objects.

The Ritzenhoff brand aspires towards the creation of art. Getting the right designers was therefore a very critical element to the success of Ritzenhoff. Sieger explained that the company being in the design field helped them to extract the creativity of the designers. Sieger Design sends the designers a briefing in the form of stories for every new line they are coming up with. What they are looking for were unique designs that bear the designers’ signature. Since the Ritzenhoff design concept is something that should appeal to a broad public, it never contains pornographic, political messages, not even cartoons.

"We are not limiting it very strictly because then we wouldn’t get very original designs. Only when there is something that cannot be realized on the technical side that we have to make some amendments. Through this, we always have an interesting collection and always something new."

This also is what makes Ritzenhoff different from other classical decorating companies.

Twice a year, Ritzenhoff presents the new designs in international trade fairs held in Frankfurt in February, Ambiente‚ and Tendence Lifestyle‚ in August. The brief of the collection is sent to the designers 10 months before every trade fair. The design selection takes around nine months before the fair or even at short notice, depending on market demand.

The selection panel consists of around eight to 12 people, which comprise Ritzenhoff’s management, branding, sales and Sieger Design. The group makes the decision based on the aesthetic and commercial appeal of the design. The designers whose designs are selected for the respective collections get royalties and are paid on a license basis.

Sieger organizes an annual Designer’s Dinner, which serves as a get-together among designers. Thus far, Ritzenhoff is sold in more than 50 countries with a pool of over 300 designers from all over the world.

Ritzenhoff Products As Works Of Art

Ritzenhoff products are collector’s items. Not only design fans collect them, museums have also been featuring Ritzenhoff products. Museums such as The Athenaeum, Chicago and since spring 2000, the Museum for Applied Art in Frankfurt.

The company has also bagged several design awards. One was for highest design quality from the Rote Punkt (Red Dot), for good design from the Industry Forum Design Hanover, Germany (IFF) and the award of the DDC design prize.