1. Who are you?
Axel Herrmann, self-employed product-designer and the person behind ajiDesign, which is a design company focusing on culinary themes respectively on cuisine and food related themes.
My aim is to design tools or concepts that help to increase the enjoyment of dining or to create something that can be regarded as a materialisation of culinary pleasure.

2. What do you like about what you do?
I like the creative diversification and the possibility to meet interesting people with different backgrounds that both go along with the work on my culinary projects. Facing new challenges every day. Combining my professional skills as a designer with my love for food and all things related. In this context I love working for people respectively with people who have a preference for dining, cuisine and – of course – food in general. Satisfying the needs of my clients by creating something very unique and very emotional, but also keeping the rational and economic aspects of cuisine in sight.

3. What don’t you like about what you do?
There´s nothing what I don´t like, because what I do is what I am. The only thing negative to mention here is the all day officialism or bureaucracy that sometimes constrains creative processes and work.

4. Please tell us about your company ajiDesign!
The term aji is borrowed from the Japanese language and can be translated as taste, flavour or aroma. In this context ajiDesign is an agency/company for food and culinary design that acts service oriented and addresses to hoteliers, gastronomes, chefs, food-companies respectively the food industry and everyone who is engaged in dining, cuisine and the culture of enjoying it.
The core competence of ajiDesign is the creation of innovative concepts, processes and products that are a profit making and economic efficient connection of culinary terms and design. Therefore ajiDesign acts close to the client and his product. The creative work is aimed at generating factors of uniqueness and success. By this, ajiDesign helps the client to tap his economic potential completely. ajiDesign offers design, consulting, strategy design and development in the fields of culinary concepts, processes and product-design.

5. Are you working with blogs and if yes, what is your favourite blog?
I´m working with blogs from time to time, it´s a source of inspiration. My favourite right now is www.playingwithfireandwater.com, a great blog from Linda. She is a freelance chef in the US.
Great dishes, great ideas, great blog!

6. Tell us about food and culinaric design and its advantages for the industry!
Food and/or culinary design is a very wide field with endless opportunities for working creative. Both, food and design, are very emotional aspects of life and when brought together the result is more than just the sum of it´s single parts. ajiDesign divides his fields of activity into three main groups and each of them refers to another aspect respectively point of view on the combination of food and design. Those fields are

  • Culinary concepts

In this field ajiDesign helps the client to present his gastronomic concept or company as a consistent package in order to communicate all qualities of the company in an aesthetic and also distinctive way. This includes the clients´ whole corporate design but also means working on new concepts for the interiors of a restaurant, a hotel or even a food-company. Besides that, ajiDesign tends to extend the existing business concept of the clients company by exploring new and economic worthwhile business areas. Based on the analysis of the structural, economical and regional conditions ajiDesign develops innovative ways to acuminate the profile of the client´s culinary brand.

  • Culinary process

ajiDesign works on techniques and ideas to improve the enjoyment of eating. In this field ajiDesign concentrates on the way we perceive culinary pleasure and how this knowledge can be used to initiate an additional benefit for the luncher. Therefore the creative dialogue with a chef is necessary, because ajiDesign wants to improve his or her style of cooking by adding new aspects to it. Those aspects include scientific knowledge and different forms of creativity that are transferred into practical forms of appliance. The result of such a culinary process can be a new recipe, an uncommon combination of different flavours or even a new technical concept for the preparation of food.

  • Product-design

ajidesign offers the client the design of his own unique table- and flatware and the development of new tools to present and serve food and dishes. The aim is here, to initiate new emotions and qualities of taste. Dining shall be seen as an event and a culinary story which is told by the chef. In this context ajidesign plays the role of a mediator, who creates the proper tools for presenting and serving the main actors of the story: the dishes.

Besides all the benefits for the client and/or the industry mentioned, there are some outstanding ones.

  1. Innovative food/culinary concepts acuminate a brands profile and it´s market position
  2. Stand alone features for a culinary brand, restaurant or hotel
  3. ajiDesign helps the client to optimize their product and – by doing so – to increase their customers loyalty.
  4. The work on culinary processes helps to create new and interesting dishes and to optimize existing dishes and recipes. It´s also possible to replace allergens by other ingredients without altering the overall impression of the dish´s taste. By choosing the right ingredients Chefs can prepare their meals without any use of artificial flavours or flavour enhancers and as a surplus can reduce their costs.
  5. Having a designer´s point of view on food, the food market and the gastronomy leads to uncommon, innovative, forward-going products and concepts, that even may help to increase the level of cuisine in general – and how we percept it.

6. Any comments you want to share with us?
Respect food, but don´t mind playing with it. It might develop into a great meal!
AND: visite my website www.aji-design.de