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Friday Five with Joel Escalona

Designer Joel Escalona heads up the Mexico City, Mexico design studio that bears his own name where they specialize in product and interior design, as well as creative direction for fashion, furniture, lifestyle, and technology. Along the way, Escalona founded nono in 2012, a design company where he’s the creative and business director, as a way to distribute his own work. He also stays busy as one of the founders of Cooperativa PanorĂ¡mica, which is a group of six Mexican designers that explore design together. The award-winning designer has topped countless lists of up-and-coming designers, a result of his unique work with brands like Roche Bobois, Odabashian, and his own nono brand. From fashion to television, let’s see where this week’s Friday Five takes us for inspiration.

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1. Peltre Gradient Tequila cups
During the week I use them for my nespresso and on Fridays some mezcal to help finish the week. These peltre little cups are from the Diario brand, which is the Spanish word for diary. Everyday this brand recollects and designs unique and every day objects from Mexico and in some way they update them in order to make them relevant according to the actual context. It’s a very interesting project from my friend MoisĂ©s HernĂ¡ndez. I really have a big affection for the brand since I was present when MoisĂ©s was designing dot by dot on the little cup.

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2. White adidas
A pair of white sneakers are always in my closet, I always try to find something similar every time I go to buy a new pair, but it’s something I really love to wear.

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3. Tumblr Feed
I have to admit it, although it’s not an obsession for pretty things, it’s an obsession to details and quality of images. I started my own inspirational board a couple of years ago and I named it Mr Escalona, an alter ego who likes geometrical gifts, nice shots of chairs, and pretty girls.

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4. House of Cards
Funny thing about designers is that we usually don’t know anything about planning, professional relationships, and well, politics, and this show reminds me how as a designer not everything is about form and function. Of course I’m talking about it in a positive way, not the way Frank Underwood does it for his own benefit. No matter what, oddly, I’ve been educated by the television as a kid, and now in some way I’ve been reminded by an internet show of how designers should be professionals and self-confident, and it reaffirms my idea that lessons come from all places, you just have to be willing to learn.

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5. Students at CENTRO University
As a new professor at this amazing university in Mexico City, I find it very inspiring to share with young students all I have learned the last year’s of my life as a designer. In a way, I see it as a form of teaching by learning, as every class they reinforce the things, somehow, that I have taken for granted.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.