With EXCESS, the objective is to create a brand with an assertive personality, which breaks with codes and conventions of classic sailboats. The design team worked upon an overall experience.
A designer focuses above all on the emotion that his design will generate. The initial impression must be the right one, it all begins with this first message conveyed by the « presence » of the boat. Designing a sailboat is designing an object within a legend and thus it should live up to the legend. Designing starts by listening, by understanding the goals set for the project, by continuously exchanging with the team and with the architects but also, by identifying key words that will provide a framework throughout the creative phase.
With these new catamarans, the main objective is to step out of the comfort zone associated with a certain reassuring conformity, and to invent a new reference. True creativity is to come up with answers to unexpected needs and, real innovation is not to follow trends but to anticipate them. The elected team is inventing a new formal language, a sculptural approach, living forms that bring us close to the cetacean’s world, rather than overly controlled shapes that take inspiration from rigid structures. The other strong feature is the introduction of a wedge line that is central in the composition. It gives a powerful directional thrust to the boat, which translates in an expressive gaze that is shared on every boats of the EXCESS range
The positioning of the helm stations, so key in establishing a closer relationship to the sea, required from us a huge attention in order to come up with design solutions that were fully reassuring, worked in all conditions and were visually integrated. But then a project without constraints could be just a little boring, as the great American designer, Charles Eames, often pointed out: « Constraints are the designer’s best friends ».
