TRISTAN LOHNER “I am an advocate of popular design”

for Tristan Lohner, drawing is as vital as his passion for jazz piano, which he studied at the CIM in Paris, or for art history. A question of genes, of inheritance perhaps? Son of Pierre Lohner - painter, sculptor and illustrator (notably for the newspaper Le Monde), he has been immersed from childhood in a world of creation and, as a matter of course, began by training as a master cabinetmaker. But for Tristan Lohner, life is above all a story of encounters, such as the one with his professor Bernard Daudé, Pierre Paulin’s cabinetmaker for the Mobilier National, who encouraged him to continue at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. There he took courses in product design with Jean- Marie Massaud. Ensues an important meeting : the one with Franck Argentin, founder and CEO of the distribution group RBC. Tristan Lohner is currently Deputy Managing Director of the group and Director of the RBC Design Center in Montpellier.

At the same time, he continues his activity as a designer with his agency Tristan Lohner Design and collaborates with various French and foreign manufacturers. From pure design to marketing, from packaging to scenography, all the activities he embraces allow him to build a broad vision of his profession. He is also an advocate of popular design, in the broadest and most democratic sense of the word.

I: All functions complement each other, interweave with each other...

I think that my experience at RBC, both scenographically and managerially, continually nourishes my creativity and accompanies me when I