A Career by Design at King Living

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A career by design

From the very beginning of his university degree, Mina Bassilious knew he’d made the right choice to study industrial design. It was everything he was looking for.

Throughout his studies, he connected with different design companies in Sydney to build his experience and knowledge. This ultimately led to his first design role, a graduate internship for BMW in Germany.

“This wasn’t actually an industrial design role but rather in UX design,” he explains. “The role gave me a taste for UX design and what it was about. I developed new skills that I will always carry with me. But it also helped me realise that I wanted to do something more hardware based and work with physical products.”

When he returned to Australia, Mina ended up working with Tom Fereday, the designer of the King Living Eto Desk. Tom connected Mina with the team at King Living who at the time were recruiting for a design assistant position. The rest is history.

After four years at King Living, Mina shares his experiences in the design team and insights on his largest design project to date, the Pallino Portable Lamp.

Featuring the Pallino Portable Lamp.

From design assistant to senior designer

Over the last four years, Mina has seen the design team grow and evolve at pace with the exciting growth of the King Living business. While he originally came into the business in a design assistant role, he has since worked in a number of roles in the design team.

“When I first started at King Living, my role involved supporting the other designers through different stages of their projects,” he recalls. “I was working on anything from prototyping to computer modelling and engineering drawings.”

Featuring the newly released Spia Pendant Light, designed by Mina.

Another important element of Mina’s role at this time was cutting patterns to support the King Care recovering service. He says this gave him a foundational understanding of how King Living patterns are made and the different requirements for each fabric.

Now, Mina is responsible for his own projects, seeing them all the way through to production.

“As the business has grown, so too has the demand for new products and designs,” he explains. “I’ve seen so much growth in the last four years, across the business and also in the design team. Because of this, the opportunity we have to come up with new concepts and expand on existing ideas is incredible.”

Featuring the Pallino Portable Lamp, Myco Side Table and 1977 Sofa.

Designing the Pallino Portable Lamp

Mina’s first opportunity to own a product from concept through to completion came with the Pallino Portable Lamp, a portable version of the popular Pallino Table Lamp.

“The design process started with thinking about the experience we wanted to create for our customers,” he says. “Our job is to integrate this into the product as comfortably and as beautifully as possible. We wanted it to be portable and convenient for them to pick up and carry around the house. This drove the scale of the lamp. We then considered how we wanted the lamp to sit in the space and that drove the material selection.”

Reflecting on the design process, Mina says that there were many prototypes and iterations to deliver the experience they were looking for. The original prototype featured a tinted glass, which made the element visible.

“As a King Living product, the lamp needed to be of a premium nature,” he explains. “We found the tinted glass was too glary and it didn’t serve the function as well as the white glass. What we’ve designed is a portable lamp with premium materials and features. It can be used in multiple areas in the home and it’s fully wireless with a rechargeable base.”

Culture of collaboration

In recent years, the King Living designers started working in pairs, collaborating across products and projects. Mina has high praise for this model, saying that it has many benefits for the designers and the design process.

“For every product we design, there are two designers across the entire process,” he explains. “This is great from an experience and career development point of view but it also means we’re building product expertise and sharing knowledge across the team.”

The collaborative culture within the design team also extends to other areas of the King Living business, as well as with suppliers.

“The design process is important,” he says. “But so is the ability to engage with suppliers and manufacturers. When we have those strong relationships, we get the best quality results.”

Working across the lighting and home office categories, Mina is as focused as ever on the customer experience of our products. This will continue to shine through in the products he designs and the value he adds to the King Living team.

Interested in joining a collaborative design team in a growing Australian heritage brand? Explore the opportunities of a career with King Living.

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