Today, in the face of advancing climate change, our planet and our mountains are showing a fragility that we’ve long underestimated. The mountains are telling us that it is time to reevaluate. It is time to step up and take responsibility, to change course so that the children of tomorrow can experience the wonders of this planet in the diverse and fascinating form that we know it today.
VAUDE has taken on this responsibility for many years. As Europe’s most sustainable outdoor supplier, we are a pioneer, challenging conventions and pushing the limits to create forward-looking functional products and sustainable solutions through innovation: Forward to nature!
Design guides our brand; it shapes our identity and our appearance. At the same time, this identity also guides our design. They are interdependent, and only together can they develop the magic that captivates and inspires people. For the products, for the brand, for the lifestyle that they represent.
VAUDE design means sustainable design – striving to find sustainable solutions for innovative products, using new materials, ensuring repairability and focusing on the essential, on what is actually necessary. It means recognizing what is irrelevant or superfluous. Sustainable design also means differentiating from the market and the competition.
»In your daily work as a designer, you are responsible for no less than 80% of the cost – initial and subsequent – of a product. During the design phase, the course is set as to how sustainable a product can be. Decisions are made about whether a product can be repaired, reused or recycled.«
1. VAUDE Design is clear and functional. It leads to products that perfectly meet their core requirements and that are logical and intuitive.
2. VAUDE Design is timeless. During the design phase, we want to lay the foundation for products that will be used for years. Even if trends and fashions change, the appreciation of our timeless and durable products endures. High quality materials and workmanship are the basis for a long product life. At the same time, we need to deal with potential conflicts that arise when the demands placed on a product limit its ability to be repaired.
3. VAUDE Design is sustainable and innovative. The search for eco-friendly materials and processing techniques is always our guide: materials that require as few resources as possible, that last as long as possible, and can be disposed of without a trace at their end-of-life.
4. VAUDE Design is authentic and embodies the Spirit of Mountain Sports.
5. VAUDE Design follows natural principles. It is inspired by nature, reflects nature’s wealth and is in itself a natural process of evolution.
VAUDE Design is a toolbox of possibilities. Our design philosophy shouldn’t be taken as a rigid document with regulative requirements, but rather as a guideline that demonstrates the relationship between the mountains, people and our brand, in order to help inspire creativity in others. Read more here.
More information about the VAUDE Design Language here.
