Humour by design

IT SEEMS that the Spanish artist/designer Jaime Hayon has divided opinion at the influential Salone del Mobili in Milan this year with his design for a side table in the form of a caricature of a monkey. Produced by BD Barcelona Design (which also produces creations by Surrealist artist Salvador Dali and Antoni Gaudi, the architect of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona), the Monkey Side Table, Hayon explains, is a reference to monkeys carved out of wood that he had seen in Africa and used in F&B outlets to signify service. The allusion to servility in colonial Africa was not lost on him, so characteristically, he decided to make a joke of it. "I thought it would be fun to make a monkey for the 21st century that looks like it is considering whether to serve you," he says with a big grin.

It was a joke that was lost on some. "Many people loved it but some people hated it," reveals Hayon. But he is undaunted, mostly because there has since been an order for 400 of the said side table.

Still, taking risks at such a critical point in one's career - Hayon is 41 years old - can put a designer in the irredeemable "Hello Kitty" category of kitsch. Fortunately for Hayon he has so far managed to avoid any such pigeonholing, largely by embracing humour as his trademark. "It's my personality. I always feel people take themselves too seriously," he adds.