People of Studio Lenzing: Leander

A big inspiration to me is interior design. I love spending quiet quality time at home and curating our space. I love movies, music and design. So that's always a big part of my day.

Leander, what led you into design?

I was always the "creative kid", always scribbling and building little things. I recognized that design was a thing for me when I started designing flyers for our first band with Photoshop. Then, of course, a website and T-Shirts had to follow.

Looking back, design was always a huge part of my life without actually realizing it. I was always curious about how things worked. Special effects in movies or hyperlinks in a website. I think that this is still a huge drive for me.

What is your job at Studio Lenzing?

I am the founder, CEO and a product designer at S-L. Right now, I'm shifting away from hands-on design to a management-focused role as we are growing — constantly and sustainably. Meaning: I have to take care of more and more business tasks. I love building, which will always be something that sticks with me, but I have to shift the focus right now.

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How does your daily (work) routine look like?

We start with coffee and then syncing. What are the goals for today? Is there feedback or input we have to follow up on? From this point, every day is different. I try to schedule a lot of calls on one day so I have more time to focus on projects the day after. I am currently also trying to work with focus blocks. One hour without interruption for one topic. Break to sync share, give feedback and then another focus block.

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Which person (dead or alive) would you love to meet (and why)?

I would love to have a coffee with Dieter Rams and just talk shop all day long. Something that would really interest me: How would he perceive his design theses and concepts these days? He obviously made some important statements for timeless and sustainable designs, yet, there were different standards, tools and materials back in the 60ies. So I would love to know if there was something that he would do or design differently when starting all over today.

What is your most recently streamed song?

Covet by Basement

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The most inspiring book ever?

The most inspiring one would be Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull. Great anecdotes about the early days at Pixar and a lot of learnings from their process. Close second place would be White by Kenya Hara.

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Which app did you last you delete from your phone (and why)?

That would be Xing & LinkedIn. The amount of non relevant pings was just too much for me.

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Favorite Podcast?

StartUp by Gimlet Media

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What's your work set-up?

If someone narrated your life, who would you want to be the narrator?

Adam Savage. Just because he is such an enthusiastic person and seems to have the greatest energy ever. Whatever he does, he seems to be like 2000 percent into it, spreading good vibes and high spirits throughout. I would love someone this positive and energetic to narrate my life with all this fire and passion.