designers

Robert Bonfils Chair

Born in Paris, Robert Bonfils was a French graphic artist, painter, and designer. He studied at the École Germain-Pilon in 1903 and at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1906.

He worked for Henri Hamm, a furniture designer. His work included paintings, bookbindings, ceramics for Sèvres, Bianchini-Frerier silk, wallpaper and interior design layouts. He designed the tea room at the Au Printemps department store in Paris. With depictions of the seasons, he decorated the wall.Read More →

Helen Abson

Helen Abson, who trained as an architect, is an Australian designer. She pursued architecture for five years; founded ZAB Design where she designed fabrics that exhibited a preoccupation for texture achieved through pattern and colour.Read More →

Frederic Goudy initials

Less dramatic accomplishments and contributions to the culture of modern civilisation by artists, artisans and designers have been but little publicised. It was in 1937 that a mild-mannered, quiet and kindly man was recognised as a real genius – Frederic W. Goudy, one of the most famous type designers in the world!Read More →

Pierre Vago Sketch featured image

Pierre Vago was a Hungarian Architect and designer. He studied at the École Spéciale d’Architecture, Paris.

He settled in France in 1928, where he was editor-in-chief on three issues of the review L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui. After World War 2, he was active in reviving the journal and set up his architecture office. In 1948 he left the journal, and it was in 1948 that he became a member of UAM (Union des Artistes Modernes). He built the Basicila de Saint-Pi X (with architect Pierre Pinsard and engineer Eugéne Freysinnet) in Lourdes.Read More →

Kurt Thut Bed featured image

Kurt Thut (b. 1931-2011) was born in Möriken, Switzerland. In his father’s workshop, while attending the School of Art and Design in Zurich, Thut improved his carpentry skills.Read More →

Unit One was a British avant-garde community of architects and fine artists were created by designer, artist, and teacher Paul Nash to encourage Modernism in art and architecture in England. Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ben Nicholson were among the group’s most prominent members, as were the architects’ Wells Coates and Colin Lucas. Read More →

Daniela Puppa black and white portrait

From 1977 to 1983, he worked as the chief editor of the design magazine Modo and as a consultant for the fashion magazine Donna. She designed interiors for Driade, Gianfranco Ferré, Montres and GFF Duty Free, Fontana Arte, Granciclismo sports machines, and Morassutti/Metropolis, as well as serving as an image and product consultant for the Croff/Rinascente chain. Read More →

Christian Joachim featured image

Christian Joachim was a Danish Ceramicist (1870-1943). Between 1889 he studied at the Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, Copenhagen.

Between 1897 and 1900, Joachim made ceramics with George Jensen in a workshop outside Copenhagen. Between 1901 to 1933 worked for the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory, where Arno Malinowski sometimes decorated his restrained neoclassical forms. Read More →

John Eberson - Atmospheric Theatre Design

John Eberson was an american designer who was known for his cinema décors. One of his earliest, the 1923 Majestic Theatre in Houston, Texas, was a loosely recreated garden of a late-Renaissance palazzo in Italy. Through his workshop Michelangelo Studios, he was was successful at producing elaborate plasterwork for his theatre décors in Spanish, Moorish, Dutch, Chinese and other styles.Read More →

Nanny Ditzel and husband

Nanna Ditzel, a leading Danish 20th-century designer, had also worked in furniture, textiles and jewellery design for many decades and has been one of the few women designers in the country to achieve celebrity status.Read More →

Ray Komai Masks

Ray Komai was a Japanese American; he was a graphic, industrial and interior designer. He studied in Los Angeles at the Art Center College.

He settled in New York in 1944, where he worked in advertising and set up a graphic design and advertising office (with Carter Winter). J.G. Furniture created Komai’s 1949 moulded plywood chair with a split seat and bent metal legs. They produced his other designs of chairs, tables and upholstered seating as well.Read More →

Vlastislav Hofman

Vlastislav Hofman (1884 – 1964) was a Czech architect, designer and artist. He studied at the Czech Technical University. He worked in the building department of the Prague magistrate. He was a member of the Artel Cooperative and Mánes Association of Plastic Artists. In 1911 he left Mánes and joined the group of plastic artists. He wrote a number of theoretical articles for magazines. In 1912, he left the group and returned to Mánes. Read More →

Lino Sabitinni featured image

Sabbatini worked as a silversmith from a very early age.  He learned metalworking techniques and became interested in shapes derived from natural materials.  The Boule teapot and example of his early work was designed for T. Wolff in Germany.Read More →

Grant Featherston featured image

He was born in Geelong, Victoria. In 1965, he married Mary Bronwyn Currey, an English-born interior designer, and the pair worked closely as interior designers for many decades. Between 1938-39, Featherston designed decorative-glass panels for Oliver-Davey Glass, Melbourne, and 1939-40 lighting for Newton and Gray, Melbourne. Read More →

Hertha Hillfon a child's head

Several exhibitions followed this in and outside Sweden, most recently Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde in 2008. She was awarded the Lunning Prize in 1962. In 1971, she became a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts.Read More →

Society of Industrial Arts Magazine Cover

The origins of the CSD lay in the creation in 1930 of the Society of Industrial Artists (SIA) in Britain, when the public debate was concerned with the nature and definition of both the designer and the design profession. Read More →

La Rinascente Window Display, Milan, Ita

La Rinascente, the Milan department store was established after the First World War and has done a great deal to promote Italian design standards. Its name, La Rinascente (Rebirth), was conceived by the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, a specific resonance in the 1930s when the company also did much to promote the domestic consumption of Italian products under Mussolini in the drive towards national self-sufficiency (autarchy).Read More →

Eames Bird design classic

The collage-like interior of Charles and Ray Eames’ private house, the Eames House, was supplemented with countless objects and accessories brought back from their travels. Read More →

Alexander Girard for Herman Miller

Alexander Girard, one of Herman Miller’s famous designers in the 1950s and 1960s, added creative textiles to Eames’ and Nelson’s furniture. He produced some of the most vibrant and vibrant fabrics available anywhere as the head of Herman Miller’s Textile Division since its inception in 1952. He also created the Girard Group, a 25-piece modern furniture collection, and the Environmental Enrichment Panels, a 40-piece series for Action Office 2.Read More →

Naomi Klein close-up featured image

Naomi Klein is a journalist and author whose best-selling book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), a criticism of the effects of the 1980s shift from manufacturing to marketing and the increased focus on brand consumption rather than product consumption, garnered international attention. Read More →