A Passionate Devotion To Create

CEBU, Philippines - It all started with passion.

Debbie Palao, one of the most awarded Cebuano furniture designers, had the passion to create things.She shared that according to her mother, she started drawing way before she started writing.

An accounting graduate, because her father, who was a lawyer, “pre-selected” the course for her, Debbie had the natural talent of an artist.

“I have always wanted to challenge myself to create something, or to make existing things better and more useful,” she said. “It was, however, my husband’s entrepreneurial idea to start a furniture manufacturing venture more than 20 years ago that provided the avenue for me to design.”

Debbie and her husband Gus started Design Ventures and exhibited their first furniture and furnishings collection at the Philippine Furniture Fair in Manila in 1990. And the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Design Ventures grew and gained for Debbie different awards and recognition. It also opened doors for her and the company to share their designs to the world through different furniture shows and exhibits.Her designs have been featured in international magazines and furniture shows in Italy, Japan and India.

Among the awards she has reaped is the KATHA award for Best Product collection for her Water Buffalo in terracotta tiles and metal in 1993, the Good Design Award from the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization in 2005, and the MUGNA award for Best Promotional Materials during the Cebu X 2008.

What inspires Debbie to create beautiful designs that have captured the eyes of the world? “Creating products that work in terms of ergonomics, in terms of being green, in terms of durability against the usual wear and tear of daily use while reflecting my very own sensibilities takes more than an inspiration or two. For me, inspiration is the seed that created the concept. All the rest is engineering, experience and a lot of good sense. It’s the left and right brains working in gear. I am, however, forever inspired by many things, from the most mundane like a bubble skirt, a lady bug, the crescent moon, the perfect circles of the bamboo nodes,” she shared.

Debbie’s designs are different and unique, organic but modern and distinctly Asian. When asked what her favorite creation is, she said that all her creations are her favorites “because they all say something different.”

A latest creation called Pout, is, according to Debbie, a new favorite. She shared that she also had a lot of fun doing Skin and the Dotarté, a piece she did for the KAGIKAN theme of Cebu NeXt 2011.

“Meryll is my tribute to the world of fashion, another design sphere I love. Her abaca rope ‘sun dress’ is woven to resemble crocheted or macramé bubble skirts,” she added.

What Debbie sees around her is also reflected in her work, such as the piece called Maze, which is her interpretation of “the industrial and the natural coming together to form a whole new entity.” She said that the rattan core of Maze was modeled after the scaffoldings of a building in progress that she saw while she was on her way to work.

A hardworker, Debbie said she has learned the value of being proactive from her family, as well as sharing her success so that others will also achieve their dreams. This is why she shares her successes to the community, most especially to the women involved in the furniture industry.

“This is an advocacy that is close to my heart, actually. Many of the natural materials I use come from areas where these materials are indigenous: Albay, Samar, Negros and Panay. Many are being produced and processed by cooperatives made up of women,” she pointed out.

With her natural talent and passion to create, hard work and the sense of duty to give back to the community to share what she has achieved, more success will surely go Debbie Palao’s way.

“I think success should not be a goal, rather it should be a consequence to hard work, to dedication, to that passion for the work you do by making it better each time you get the chance to do it again. I have always been accused of being too passionate over work or mainly over everything! But for me, what is life without passion? The only way to live life is to live it fully,” Debbie concluded.