From Product Design to International Production: Francesco's Journey from Concept to Reality
Date
20 July 2026
After earning his Bachelor's Degree in Product Design at IED Roma, Francesco quickly transformed his academic education into a professional career at Sotokler Studio, where he currently works as a Product Designer & Procurement Coordinator. In an international and multidisciplinary environment, he manages design projects for clients across the globe, overseeing every stage of development, from the initial concept through to final production.
Working closely with artisans, ateliers, and specialized manufacturers, he has gained extensive experience with a wide range of materials, production techniques, and manufacturing processes, contributing to projects spanning Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Among the most significant milestones in his journey is the development of "Ishidoro", a lighting design that originated from one of his own concepts and is now progressing through a real-world product development and production process.
We asked Alessandro to reflect on how his years at IED helped shape his design methodology and how working within an international design studio has influenced his approach to transforming ideas into tangible products.
"Over the past year, my life has changed significantly.
I moved from studying to doing: from being a Product Design student at IED Rome to working as a Product Designer & Procurement Coordinator at Sotokler Studio.
One of the things that surprised me most when entering this industry was realizing that even ideas that initially seem too complex or difficult to achieve can become reality when you understand the right materials, processes, and people needed to bring them to life.
Working on international projects from the very beginning also taught me something important. In places such as New York, Palm Beach, or the Hamptons, it is common to encounter projects that leave considerable room for experimentation and allow ideas to be pushed further. This is particularly stimulating because it encourages you to think ambitiously while simultaneously understanding, in detail, how to make those ideas feasible and manufacturable.
Today, I oversee projects from the earliest references through to production. I can start from a sketch, a rendering, or even an image shared by a client, and collaborate with ateliers, artisans, and manufacturers to transform it into a tangible object.
One of the achievements I am most proud of is that, together with the team, we are currently developing a lamp based on one of my own projects, "Ishidoro." Seeing something I designed enter an actual development and production process has been incredibly rewarding.
I work closely with the studio's two co-founders, Legare Sinkler and Viktor Sobra, within an international environment and as part of a team that continues to grow month after month. Everything moves quickly, and every week can be entirely different from the previous one.
One day I might be visiting a historic Murano glass furnace to observe glassmaking firsthand; the next, I could be in Veneto overseeing marble craftsmanship; and the day after, in a woodworking workshop in Umbria solving a technical detail for a monumental table. All of this takes place in support of projects located in Qatar, Pasadena, or Charleston.
IED provided me with a strong foundation for entering such a dynamic design studio. It taught me not to focus solely on the final form of an object, but to ask how it can be built, which materials are best suited to it, and which processes are required to bring it into existence.
Perhaps this is what I find most rewarding about my work: seeing an idea that initially exists only on a screen become something real, sometimes on the other side of the world."
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