designs

Maiolica tin-glazed earthenware

Maiolica is a tin-glazed earthenware that was produced during the Renaissance in Italy. The name comes from Majorca, the island from which, in the 15th century, a lot of Hispano-Moresque tin-glazed pottery was brought into Italy. The technique of covering with a tin glaze earthenware was similar to that used elsewhere in Europe for delftware and faience.Read More →

Eva Zeisel ceramics featured image

Eva Zeisel (1906 – 2011) was a Hungarian designer and ceramicist. She was born in Budapest. She was professionally active in Germany, Russia, Austria, and the USA. She settled in the United States in 1938.Read More →

Marimekko featured image

Marimekko, one of the most well-known Finnish textile companies, was founded by Armi and Viljö Ratia in Helsinki in 1951 as the trendy and innovative arm of their parent business, Printex, which they also formed two years earlier. At Printex, Armi Ratia created bold, experimental printed cotton textiles. Still, after this failed to catch the popular imagination, she founded Marimekko.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 →

Artifort design manufacturer

Artifort used freelance designers, including Kho Liang Le and Pierre Paulin. It produced chairs, settees, and tables. It first used plastics in Paulin’s 1965 Chair 582 in tensioned rubber and latex foam and his 1965-66 Armchair 303 in polyester fibreglass. It produced Paulin’s 1953 Chair 157 in polyester, ABS, and elastomers and 1967 F577 chair. Read More →

Raymond Loewy featured image

He arrived in the United States in 1929, just in time for the great depression. As it happened the beginning of the depression was a fortuitous time for a talented designer with new ideas to arrive in the United States. The old design aesthetic was disappearing with the collapsing economy. Manufacturers wanted to stimulate demand for their products by offering customers new designs, and Loewy had an abundance of them with the ego to match. His mother had always told him, “It is better to be envied than pitied.”Read More →

Vintage armchair Jumbo fibreglass

Alberto Rosselli (1921-76) Italian architect and industrial designer. He was born in Palermo. He was professionally active in Milan. Read More →

Opera Glasses - Lucien Falize

Lucien Falize (1838- 1897) was French goldsmith and jeweller. He was active in Paris and son of Alexis Falize, father of Andre Falize. When his father retired in 1876, Lucien assumed directorship of the family business. He attempted to expand the business by showing at 1878 Paris ‘Exposition Universelle’ and becoming partners with Germain Bapst. In 1892, the partnership was dissolved. 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 →

Candace Wheeler fabric

THE MOTHER OF INTERIOR DESIGN

She is noted for helping to open the field of interior design to women, supporting craftswomen, and for encouraging a new style of American design.Read More →

Aldo Rossi featured image

Aldo Rossi (1931 – 1997) was an Italian architect. He was born and professionally active in Milan.

He is considered by many to be the greatest Italian architect of the second half of the 20th century. His life as an architect began with Gardella and Zanuso. Read More →

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a British painter and poet. He was born in London. He studied drawing with Cotman and, in 1848, with Holman Hunt. Read More →

Nikolai Mikhailovich Suetin (1897-1954) was a Russian artist, ceramicist, and designer. He was born in Metlevsk Station Kaluga. He was the husband of Anna Leporskaia. Between 1918-22, he studied Vitebsk Art School. He became a member of Kazimir Malevich’s Posnovis/Unovis group in 1919, and, with Il’ia Chashnik, was one of Malevich’s closest collaborators. Read More →

Ulla Procopé. Finnish Designer featured image

Ulla Procopé (1921 – 1968) was a Finnish designer and ceramicist. She studied at the Taideteollinen Korkeakoulu, Helsinki, to 1948.Read More →

Gateway arch by Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen (1910 – 1961) Finnish architect. He was born in Kirkkonummi. He was professionally active in the USA. The son of Eliel and Loja Saarinen.Read More →