Design | Dornbracht

Just “In My Opinion”

Producing the concept and design for Dornbracht’s innovative IMO range of bathroom fittings

The Cersaie trade fair in Bologna played host to bathroom fittings manufacturer Dornbracht’s official unveiling of its new IMO range, designed by sieger design. With its hybrid shape and boundless versatility, it’s positioned firmly in the first premium segment. The range marks the Dornbracht sieger design partnership’s second major innovation of 2010, following on from its Ambiance Tuning Technique, and marks a continuation of a success story that dates back almost thirty years.

Anyone who frequently visits online chat rooms and forums will know that “IMO” stands for “In My Opinion”. This has become the key idea behind our new range, featuring bathroom fittings that are suitable for use in many different settings and which can be integrated into bathrooms in a range of ways to reflect the customer’s own personal taste and interior design style.

IMO is a reflection of the current trend towards providing customers with more freedom to make their own decisions in the area of bathroom design. These bathroom fittings owe their limitless versatility to their modern crystal-clear shapes, the result of two years of development work. From the start, Dornbracht and sieger design held a series of workshops to discuss the various design parameters and specifications. Further comprehensive discussions and an analysis of the product’s market potential led to these initial guidelines being modified and fine-tuned to reflect the market structure. Having initially planned simply to update the existing Meta.02 range, they eventually decided to develop something entirely new – a range of bathroom fittings that symbolised economy and efficiency and would be similarly positioned at the top of the premium segment.

Before getting down to work on actually designing the range, the agency’s comprehensive market research was able to highlight the various ways in which it could be optimised and differentiated from competitors. Dornbracht and sieger design also worked together to examine consumer behaviour and demands in detail. Thus social trends, behavioural models and recent market developments all played a key role in the product design process. The results of this analysis fed into the final design in order to ensure a strong focus was placed on creating a commercially successful product. In this respect, it was also important to bear in mind that Dornbracht would be able to draw on a range of established production technologies.

On this basis, sieger design developed a clear design strategy characterised by simple, progressive shapes and geometric clarity. “We settled on a cylindrical body and hence a harmonious design style at an early stage,” explains Benedikt Sauerland, member of the management. “We combined the vertical cylindrical body with a cuboidal horizontal element so that IMO would bring together two different geometric styles.” Everything was thought through down to the smallest detail, and this can be seen for example in the absence of bevelled edges. sieger design was also able to integrate technical innovations into the range, with a host of intelligent features such as an adjustable aerator on the bidet mixer tap, which allows the direction of the water stream to be modified by up to 30 degrees.

Alongside a wide selection of bathroom fittings, the IMO range also encompasses a host of bathroom accessories. But Dornbracht, who is cooperating with the agency Meiré an Meiré for this purpose, doesn’t see this in itself as central to its communication strategy – its focus is more on the potential to broaden its target group. In order to appeal to different types of customers, six display bathrooms were developed as testament to the range’s exceptional versatility and potential: Fashion Girl Spontaneous, Masculine Independent, Feminine Sensual, Quality Time Sophistication, Casual Sports und Creative Natural.

Picture Copyright: Dornbracht
Photography: Thomas Popinger
Communication Concept, Creation and Architecture for Dornbracht: Meiré und Meiré

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Christian Sieger
Managing Director

Rebecca Wolter
Senior PR Consultant