alberto meda reworks the relationship between glasses + frame for JINS eyewear collection

following unique collections with jasper morrison, konstantin grcic, and michele de lucchi, japanese eyewear brand JINS has collaborated with alberto meda for the fourth installment of its JINS design project. designboom visited the world-acclaimed italian industrial designer in his studio in milan and engaged in an in-depth conversation with him regarding this new collaboration. for JINS, meda has focused on the idea of the eyeglasses first, and not the shape, concentrating on the hinges from the beginning, and searched for a new ‘relationship’ among the working parts that form the eyeglasses, the frame, and the temples.images © alberto meda unless stated otherwise

for his collaboration with JINS, alberto meda designed the eyeglasses with an ‘almost organic’ image, using aluminum and titanium to create a simple, comfortable and lightweight frame. meda wanted the natural flow of the glasses to retain its relationship between the front and temple areas in order to make the frame’s outer shell material look as continuous as possible. the ‘almost organic’ collection comes in four styles and four colors – meda uno, meda due, meda tre and meda quattro – that focus on the connection among the frame and temple, materials and technology.

meda uno and meda due use a metallic material, with a softer medium for the parts that come into contact with the skin, while aluminum is used for the front piece and TR-90 for the temples. although different materials have been combined, the finished product looks as if it is made from one single material. meda tre and meda quattro use β-titanium, a material which makes the glasses very lightweight and versatile while maintaining its shape. it uses light-reflecting properties of β-titanium, where the colors change depending on the direction of light. a combination of β-titanium and engineering plastic was used for the temple, providing elasticity to enable a smooth open-and-close motion.

‘when jins asked me to design titanium and aluminum glasses I didn’t immediately think of a new shape, but I concentrated on hinges, I was looking for an idea for a new “relationship” between the parts that form the eyeglasses, between frame and temples,’ explains alberto meda. ‘for me it is important to pay attention to the relationship between the component parts and to the relationships between us and the objects because we test them, sometimes unconsciously, with all our senses, not only with sight. I believe in an aesthetic of the relationship, that is, an aesthetic that is not only linked to the shape of the object but also to the way it functions. technology, allowing the integration of functions, helps to produce light and simple objects, and this is very important because simplicity, which means complexity resolved, is for me an “almost biological” need.’

image courtesy of JINSimage courtesy of JINSimage courtesy of JINS image courtesy of JINSimage © designboom image © designboom image © designboom image © designboom