15 Questions with Michael DiTullo (Part 2)

By Alexis Wagman

In part two of our conversation with Michael DiTullo we dive deeper into his viewpoint on design, his design process, sustainability, and the transition into designing Kirei by Carnegie acoustic products for commercial spaces. Be sure to check out part one of this interview to read more about Michael's inspiration, design philosophy, and journey to becoming an Industrial Designer.

You say "a rendering is a statement, a sketch is a conversation." Can you speak more to this philosophy?

I think sometimes young designers rush into CAD to produce renderings. It can feel like you are saving time but in my experience a rendering often becomes a yes or no situation with a client. I like my level of visual to build as the design builds, so early in the process when the ideas are still fuzzy I’m showing clients sketches. Those sketches are there not to get final approval but to help me facilitate a conversation. I find that most people are comfortable talking about sketches because they don’t look “done”. I want to stay in that idea space as long as possible. By the time I get to a CAD rendering the client already knows they are going to love what they see.. They are going to recall those conversations and see themselves in it. At that point I want to make a statement. So when I tell young designers a sketch is a conversation and a rendering is a statement I’m talking about  knowing what fidelity of visual to employ when to get what you need at that moment in the process.

Have you ever felt imposter syndrome and if so, how did you overcome it?

I feel imposter syndrome all the time…. Especially because I am always pushing myself to try new things and usually I take on a speaking engagement or two per year, sometimes in front of 400+ people! Right before I get on that stage I have that moment of who am I to think I should be up here! I remember talking to a friend about this over coffee years ago and she said “Michael, if you feel this way, the rest of us are doomed”... it made me realize that I needed to push through it more and just own who I have become and feel confident in my body of work and all the lessons it taught me. Many years ago when I was in design school I had a presentation teacher who was a Shakespearn actor. Most presentation instructors tell you to just be yourself, but this teacher approached it from the perspective of an actor. He told me to not be myself, because that person just wants to be at home drawing. Instead he told me to be who I needed to be at that moment. It was a really liberating statement and something I still think about before every client presentation. Who do I need to be right now? It always makes the imposter syndrome thoughts dissipate.

What does sustainability mean to you as a designer?

There are so many intellectual arguments around sustainability and design and business, but recently I’ve just been breaking it down to its simplest possible form: no planet, no design. Frankly we are living through what we were warned about 30 years ago. The climate is changing, we are in it. The question is what can we do to slow things down, to mitigate and ultimately to make things better. It took us decades to get to this point. We know it will take decades to get out. Every win for sustainability, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction. When I think of sustainability I often think in terms of progress not perfection. Will this product be totally carbon neutral or even better carbon negative? Probably not yet, but we can keep stepping in that direction until we turn the tide.

How has your design career thus far inspired you or helped you transition into designing acoustic management products for Kirei by Carnegie?

Before starting my consulting practice in 2017 I spent 5 years as the Chief Design Officer of a holding company called Sound United. SU at the time owned a diverse array of audiophile speaker companies like Polk Audio and Definitive Technology and went on to acquire Denon, Maranz and Bowers & Wilkens. There my team and I worked with some of the best audio engineers in the world and learned how to create speaker housings that enhanced acoustics, minimized diffraction, and kept sound waves intact. Ironically for Kirei I now do the opposite of that. Now I’m breaking all the rules those audio engineers taught me to break down sound waves until they dissipate! It is a fun reversal!

How do you approach sustainability when you're working on a new product design?

The way we approach sustainability when working on a new product design is to really think about it as a whole system. We want to think of not only the material,  in this case, PET, but where that PET comes from. The PET we use comes from 60% post consumer recycled material (basically… water bottles). So everytime we put more PET in a room, we’re preventing water bottles from going into the landfill. The other way we like to think of it as a system is “how do we reduce the different types of materials.” We really work hard to make sure we’re minimizing things like metal structures so that most of the product is recycled material. When we have to use a secondary material, like metal, we try to use aluminum because aluminum itself can be very easily recycled. We want to think of the product in 360 degrees and not just think about the product itself, but also where the materials come from that make the product.

The third and final part of this interview will be released on 12/05/2023. To learn more about Michael, head to his website here. If you would like to submit questions on anything design-related for future installments of the series we'd love to hear from you! Email questions to: acousticdesignservices@carnegiefabrics.com.