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For his design college graduation exhibition back in 1998, Alexander Lervik at the tender age of 26 had unknowingly hit on what was to become his winning concept. With his exhibition 10 stools 10 decades he had combined concept design, unlikely partnerships and innovations in what turned out to be his way in to the industry. This three-way design approach is defining for Alexander Lervik’s almost 20-year career as one of Sweden’s leading designers, whose quest for innovation speaks louder than the passion for creating beautiful objects. “I rarely get hung up on the details or art-for-art’s sake. What fires me is the desire to create a product based on a novel concept or invention. I see this as my forte, though some might see it as a failing in a designer”, says Alexander. “Everyday life inspires me. Sometimes I want to share trivial observations. Other times the topics seem more existential. But mostly, the simple, small and everyday matters the most.” Worapong Manupipatpong and Ada Chirakranont are Atelier 2+, a Bangkok-based design studio. The duo studied at KMITL in Bangkok and at Konstfack in Stockholm and their designs show that Scandinavian Design is a concept that is not limited by nationality. In their work they seek to erase the boundaries between architecture and furniture, art and design. The duo responsible for the Wick Chair are designers with roots in the province of Småland where so much of the skills and expertise of the Swedish furniture industry have developed. Both Karl Malmvall and Jesper Ståhl come from families that have manufactured furniture, with parents and grandparents who started successful companies that they have developed and refined. In Karl’s case there was a tradition of fine cabinetmaking while Jesper’s ancestors redirected a metal manufactory to become a successful pioneer in the field of public-sector furnishing. Their lengthy experience of designing furniture and other products both for the home and for the public sector has given the duo a detailed understanding of the criteria for a modular shell chair. Jessika Källeskog is very much a hands-on designer, sculpting forms, working in close harmony with her material. She spent a decade studying and working in Italy and this has had a formative influence on her understanding of design. It was in Italy that she developed her interest in sculpture and craftwork, as well as her fascination with the tactile qualities of objects: their materiality, and the encounters between contrasting forms that subtle details can give rise to. Today Jessika runs ‘Contour’, her own design studio in Stockholm specializing in product design and interior architecture. Jonas Wagell is a Swedish architect and designer based in Stockholm. "My design is focused on functional items rather than artistic objects. I appreciate products that can be used everyday and be a part of people's lives. I believe affection and emotion is more important than exclusivity and expensive materials. My aim is to create simplistic objects that are easy to understand and use, but try to add something personal and expressive. I like to call this philosophy a 'generous minimalism'. Great design is not made by expensive materials per se, but rather a combination of functionality and affection. It has to withstand the wear and tear of eye and time." It was certainly no accident that Karl Malmvall became a furniture designer. He more or less grew up in Karl Andersson & Sons’ furniture factory in Huskvarna, a firm started by his grandfather and for which his own father designed furniture. After studying at the Carl Malmsten school in Stockholm and the Aarhus architectural college in Denmark, Karl was discovered by Gillis Lundgren who was one of Ivar Kamprad’s closest collaborators. This resulted in two decades of working at IKEA, initially at the furniture giant’s design office in Switzerland and thereafter in Jakarta, Indonesia. The years that he spent at IKEA stimulated an interest in the practical details of design that few designers devote much attention to: creating a product that not only works well but that is also well adapted to manufacture and distribution. Over the years Karl has acquired a notable collection of such items and it was the prototype of a folding chair that he presented when he first met with Design House Stockholm’s founder and managing director Anders Färdig. Kristina Stark is an independent industrial designer with clients like Höganäs Keramik, Boda Nova, Gense, and Design House Stockholm. In 2008 she founded and established her own company ‘Design: Kristina Stark’, designing and producing kitchenware and tabletop products under her own label. Lisa Hilland creates contemporary design with a poetic twist, combining modern high-tech production techniques with artisan quality craftsmanship. After graduating from Central St Martin's College of Art and Design, she worked ten years as a designer in London before setting up her own studio in Sweden in 2005. “As a designer I have a great love of materials and how they influence how we perceive an object. I am constantly experimenting with the qualities of materials, making use of them in new combinations. Excellent design triggers our emotions and according to me, materials have a great part to play while designing - or as I call it - giving an object a soul that can be loved.” “The starting point for a project can be solving a challenge of practical or emotional nature, or simply exploring a technique of manufacture or crafts that fascinates me. I aim to create items that are sensitive to human emotions and needs and I always push my clients to consider the environment as far as they possibly can. Therefore I am deeply involved in every project, you often find me on the factory floor looking for more beautiful, eco-friendlier and smarter solutions. The creative process itself is another inspiration and the state of mind I'm in when working. Each project has its own unique progress, as important to me as the finished result. Enjoying the process and exploring new areas of knowledge, I believe is the key to all good design!” “We often ask ourselves: can you really do this? Let’s try. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it does not, but then at least we have tried. One of us works in small scale with details, pragmatic and pondering. The other one thinks big, on an architectural scale. Our work is a hybrid of both.” The design studio Barolo/Mårtensson works in a broad field with clients like IKEA, Svenskt Tenn and Rörstrand. Margot Barolo is a product designer who has delved into the issues of production, challenging the image of the Swedish crafts and design industry and how we evaluate the creation/design of an object. Ulrika Mårtensson is an architect and textile designer. She has been working with large-scale textile installations and development of sound absorbing textiles for public spaces. Matti Klenell’s design style is easily recognisable by its powerful ex- pression, where a decorative harmony is created through balancing bold volumes. With his glass art heritage, it’s no surprise that Matti Klenell feels powerfully drawn to the arts and crafts. Matti Klenell was born in Gothenburg in 1972. He graduated with an MFA from the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in 1999. After graduating, he set up his own design studio and today works with international design commissions. In addition to working with projects for serial production, Matti Klenell also develops and produces unique objects as limited editions, mostly in glass. His work can be found at Statens konstmuseer, Nationalmuseum, The Röhsska Museum, Museum of Design and Applied Arts, Gardabaer in Iceland, and Designmuseum Danmark, among others. Matti also had several solo exhibitions and has received several prizes and awards. By helping her grandfather who was a signmaker in Iceland, Ragnheiður Ösp Sigurðardóttir was inspired to work creatively at an early age. “There was always this strong sense of DIY and making things happen. This way of thinking inspired me to open my mind and see that it is possible to create anything.” After studies at the Iceland Academy of Arts and Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Ragnheiður opened her own studio in Reykjavik. The Knot cushion was born in 2011, while she was making bear figures made of crocheted tubes. “I wanted to try tying the tubes into knots and seeing the outcome. I found the idea of a big, soft knot intriguing in a fun kind of pop-arty way. I also like that when you take a first look at the cushion you might not really know what it is, and perhaps that is what draws you closer.”DesignerProducts
Alexander Lervik
Ann Wåhlström
It all started with a longing to do something in ceramics again – a material that glass-artist and designer Ann Wåhlström refers to as her “first material”. As a teenager Ann Wåhlström dreamed of becoming a potter but in due course she transferred her affection to glass. Since training in ceramics at Capellagården on the Baltic island of Öland she has almost exclusively worked with glass and is recognized today as one of Sweden’s leading glass artists – a designer who mixes her traditional schooling in Sweden with the more experimental approach that prevails in the USA. As she explains about her encounter with glass: “I was bitten by glass while at the glass training school at Orrefors in 1979, and the rest is history …”
Anna Kraitz
Anna Kraitz is one of Sweden’s leading contemporary designers, with clients such as Källemo, Svenskt Tenn, and Almedahls. She also runs her own label. Anna trained in Hungary and at the Pernby School of Painting. She graduated from Beckmans College of Design in 1999 and has since worked as a furniture and product designer. Anna has received numerous awards including the prestigious Bruno Mathsson prize in 2008, and Swedish Plaza Magazine’s ”Designer of the Year”-award.
Astrid Lindgren
“I know what the meaning of life isn’t. Collecting money and knickknacks and things, being famous and grinning from the pages of women's glossy magazines, being so afraid of loneliness and quiet that you never get a calm moment to think: What am I doing with my short time here on earth?” – Astrid Lindgren View all products→
Atelier 2+
Axel Bjurström
Axel Bjurström has a keen eye for everyday objects. Can they be improved, tweaked, and made desirable once again? Whether it’s a mirror with a lasso or a flat screen TV on an easel, Axel is always on the lookout for a hidden feature to bring out, in an effort to bring a fresh voice to the materials and functionality. He first became interested in design while working as a project manager for the fashion company Filippa K. Since graduating from the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in 2007, Axel Bjurström has worked on interior architecture and all kinds of product design. Today his primary focus is on furniture, where his straightforward and functional designs keep the Scandinavian tradition alive and well. “A strong contemporary trend is to make the office feel like home. I really don't think the dichotomy between work and home is very relevant anymore.” Axel Bjurström has received the Elle Decoration Swedish Design Award twice, first as Newcomer of the Year in 2012, and then for Best Chair in 2015. View all products→
Broberg & Ridderstråle
Mats Broberg & Johan Ridderstråle is a collaborative duo based in Stockholm. They work in a mixed architecture and design practice and strive to add an emotional value to their work. With recognizable symbols and meanings their ambition is to communicate with the user. Inspiration is often found in everyday life where they try to combine a rationalist approach with wit and the clash between past and present. View all products→
Carina Ahlburg
Carina Seth Andersson
Carina Seth Andersson is a Swedish designer who is known for her distinctive yet purposeful objects in glass, ceramic and sometimes textile. Her design process is about scaling-back, finding the balance between simplicity and meaningful form to result in pieces that have a timeless quality.
Carina works on commissions from a wide range of Scandinavian and international design producers, as well as in her studio in Gustavsberg, an area famous for its porcelain production in the Stockholm archipelago. With an MFA from Konstfack, Carina lectures at Beckmans College of Design and at various design courses throughout Sweden. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. Her pieces are also part of the permanent collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen. View all products→
Caroline Wetterling
Caroline Wetterling is a designer based in Stockholm, who works with products, furniture and interiors. With her work, Caroline aims to encourage the users participation and awareness of details in everyday life. She is educated at Konstfack and Beckmans College of Design. View all products→
Catharina Kippel
Catharina Kippel has been collaborating with Design House Stockholm since the beginning, and is the designer behind much of our bestselling dinnerware. She has studied pottery and glassblowing in Sweden as well as ancient ceramic firing techniques in Japan, and has a master’s degree from Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Since 1995, Catharina runs her own studio in Gustavsberg’s old porcelain factory, and her work is represented at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and the Porcelain Museum in Gustavsberg. View all products→
Chuck Mack
Chuck Mack is an American designer who is half-Icelandic, and currently lives and works in Reykjavik. A self-taught designer and carpenter, Chuck quotes Jack Kerouac to explain his design philosophy: “The best teacher is experience and not through someone’s distorted point of view”. View all products→
Claesson Koivisto Rune
Fruit baskets for Cappellini, a video set for Kylie Minogue, textiles for Almedahl, task lamps for Wästbergs, interiors for restaurant Operakällaren and Nobis Hotel in Stockholm, carpets for Asplund, jewellery for Gallery Pascale, not to mention the architecture of the Sfera building in Kyoto. ”Multidisciplinary” seems like a good word to describe Eero Koivisto, Ola Rune and Mårten Claesson, founders of the Stockholm-based office for architecture and design that bears their surnames. Founded in 1995 by the three former classmates from Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, the studio quickly gained international acclaim and was the first Swedish architects ever to be exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Today the Claesson Koivisto Rune office is located in Stockholm’s Södermalm district with a staff of about twelve.
When asked about their design philosophy the trio answers that their work is not limited by any defined regulations, but that their only focus is to develop, to improve and never to repeat themselves. They try to engage in any exciting projects that turn up, and architecture and design are equally important to them. View all products→
Eva Schildt
Growing up on an island in the Stockholm archipelago, the sea and the rugged island environment are constant companions in Eva Schildt’s artistic practice. Since graduating in Furniture and Product Design from Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm, in 2001, Schildt has designed everything from furniture to textiles, packaging and trade fair showcases. She also works as an interior architect. The materials and techniques vary; sometimes it is about crafts, sometimes serial production. Inspired by nature, the design, which is often sculptural, has virtually always comprised elements of humour and multifunctionality. View all products→
Färg & Blanche
Stockholm based design studio Färg & Blanche was founded in 2010 by the Swedish designer Fredrik Färg and designer Emma Marga Blanche, born in France. Known for their experimental stance, where each expression informs the other, they effortlessly move between the exclusive hand made one off and the industrially produced, without ever losing their distinctive touch.
Form Us With Love
Form Us With Love is a Swedish design studio with a conceptual, clear minimalistic approach, often with an underlying tone of humour. The trio met on a course in product design at Karlmar University, and consists of John Löfgren, Jonas Pettersson and Petrus Palmér. Their spacious studio is located in central Stockholm, and have hosted serveral exhibitions. Work from Form Us With Love includes furniture and lighting for several internationally recognized design companies and awards such as the “Red Dot Design Award” and the “Young Swedish Design Award”. View all products→
Gábor Palotai
Gábor Palotai was born in Budapest. He took his Master of Arts degree at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. In 1981 he moved to Stockholm where he continued his studies at the Royal Institute of Art and Beckmans College of Design. Since the 1990’s he has worked with many artistic projects. His award-winning graphic design and interdisciplinary art is internationally acclaimed. He is honorary professor at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). Over the years he has won many awards such as Red Dot Design Award, Swedish Design Prize, Golden Egg Award, and Excellent Swedish Design Award. Represented in many design collections, for example the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and the rare book collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. His studio Gabor Palotai Design is based in Stockholm, Sweden.
Gunilla Allard
With her precise, minimalistic and elegant designs, Gunilla Allard is one of Sweden’s most renowned furniture designers. It’s no wonder she worked on movies as an art director, prop master, and set designer before embarking on a design education. After creating all the art glass blown at Orrefors for the cult classic The Glassblower’s Children, her endeavor for perfection and interpretation of a Scandinavian touch have infused every design assignment she has taken on, with thorough attention to detail regardless of the market. “We appreciate products that are homey at work; why should we design for either the home or the office? I’ve tried to bridge that gap since I started out as a designer.” In addition to furniture, Gunilla Allard has designed lighting, rugs, and kitchen and glassware since she graduated from the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in 1988. After graduation, which included a year as an exchange student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, she became the first female designer at Swedish furniture company Lammhults. Her Cinema easy chair, in addition to many other products, has won multiple awards. View all products→
Gustav Hallén
Gustav graduated as an interaction designer from the Umeå Institute of Design, and works with interactive graphic design as well as furniture and industrial design. View all products→
Harri Koskinen
Harri Koskinen is without doubt Finland’s most important designer today. Born 1970 in Karstula, Finland, Harri’s ingenious design language is deeply rooted in Finnish design tradition, striving for austerity and simplicity. Today he runs his own company Friends of Industry, with clients like Finnish Artek, Iittala and Marimekko, and international brands such as Magis, MUJI, Swarovski, and Issey Miyake. Harri was appointed design director of Iittala in 2011.
From lighting, furniture, watches, loudspeakers, textiles, packaging for Finlandia, art glass to architecture – it’s hard to find a designer with a broader range of work. But we are proud to say the Block Lamp is probably still the one piece Harri is best known for.
Harri has received numerous awards, including the Compasso d’Oro, also known as ’the Nobel Prize of the design industry’. In 2009 Harri received the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Award, one of the world’s largest design awards. The jury noted that despite his young age, Harri is probably Finland’s most renowned designer whose design is a perfect combination of tradition and renewal. View all products→
Helena Sellergren
Her roots are in Sweden, her home is in France, and her soul resides in Japan. Amidst all these inspirational backgrounds, the beauty and miracles of nature are where Helena Sellergren starts when looking for her next design. “It might be the delicate veins on a leaf or the internal geometry nestled in a flower. I’m fascinated by the slightly uneven, irregular forms that express the hidden geometry of nature.” As an artist and designer, her aim is to bring us closer to our inner authentic selves through products that infuse the mundane with new qualities. She studied at Cooper Union in New York and ENSAD in Paris, and holds a degree from the University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She works with silkscreens on thin paper for collages, with textiles, drawing and printing, and she hand-makes organically dyed clothing. Her style can be interpreted as a subtle protest against minimalist perfection, a holistic case for the subtle memory of our roots in an ever-changing organic nature. “Not too even, not too polished. It has to retain that inner breath, that rhythm, the sheer vibration that makes it human: not too perfect, but rather, a harmonious whole.” View all products→
Jesper Ståhl
Jesper Ståhl is a Swedish freelance designer with a Master’s in design from the Royal College of Art in London. His broad portfolio includes everything from tools and cutlery to furniture and lighting. He has received lots of awards and recognition, both nationally and internationally. Jesper is passionate about creating products that are poised between limitations and the user experience, that aim to highlight a personality and an expression — through collaboration, innovation and creativity. His work has a clear Scandinavian simplicity, often with a personal touch and a creative construction. These are designs that tell a story. View all products→
Jesper Ståhl & Karl Malmwall
Jessika Källeskog
Jonas Grundell
Jonas has worked with furniture and interior design for private homes since he graduated from the Carl Malmsten School in Stockholm in 1986. His Nordic Light wooden candle holder with four or seven arms has become a classic design icon. View all products→
Jonas Wagell
Karl Malmwall
Kristina Stark
“I am constantly searching for the simplicity. To find the essence. To find the heart of the object. How many times have I endeavored to find the optimal form without any unnecessary lines and decorative elements? Eliminating what can be dispensed with — that is the challenge. It is so much easier to add something than to take it away. The big value of the small details. Simplicity is a difficult goal.”
Lena Bergström
Lena Bergström has a deep knowledge of craftsmanship and an utmost respect and love for the material that she is working with whether it is glass, metal or textiles. Basket Rug is entirely made by hand and has a reminiscence of old times hand woven baskets. The special technique of hand-tufting runs in different directions to en- hance the three-dimensional feel of Basket. New colours are a grey- brown, that blends well with both grey and brown-beige colours, and dark green. Several threads in different shades creates the desired lustre. The rug is then carefully cut by hand into a tromp l’oeil graphic pattern that pays homage to Swedish handicraft traditions such as birch bark baskets and rucksacks. Sharp angles and soft transitions play the roles in a shadow play that is both illusion and reality. View all products→
Lina Nordqvist
Lina has a background as a set designer in the swedish film industry, as well as a degree from Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm. Her first work from Design House Stockholm comprises Family Chairs, four chairs with unique identities. View all products→
Lisa Hilland
Magnus Löfgren
Magnus has been collaborating with Design House Stockholm since the very beginning. His early successes is the Shell candle holder and the Focus vase, which achieved the Excellent Swedish Design award In 1995. He was educated at HDK, the School of Design and Craft at Gothenburg University and has his own design studio in Stockholm. View all products→
Margot Barolo & Ullrika Mårtensson
Marianne Abelsson
Textile designer Marianne Abelsson started working with Design House Stockholm in 1997. She is educated at the Textile School in Borås and has been working as a designer and running her own business for many years. Her designs include the Pleece collection, the ceramic clock Tid, the candlestick Table Light, the Cutting Board range, and the pleated felt Runner and Pillowcase. She has done significant design work for companies such as Almedahls and Borås Wäfveri. View all products→
Marie-Louise Gustafsson
Marie-Louise got her degree at Konstfack, the University College of Art, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She also studied at the Royal College of Art, London. Her conceptually pragmatic designs have been shown around the world. View all products→
Mathieu Gustafsson
Mathieu Gustafsson has his roots both in Paris and in the Swedish province of Småland – the heart of the Swedish furniture industry. It is by observing the differences and similarities between these two cultures from an early age that initiated Mathieu's interest in product design.
His creative process often starts with a defined need, a behavior or a technique, with an ambition to find a new angle for the producer he works for. Professionally, Mathieu has a background in graphic design, cabinet making and furniture design.
Specialized in furniture for the contract market Mathieu started and managed the design studio at Tengbom - one of the leading architect firms in Sweden. Today he runs his own studio in Stockholm with projects ranging from design objects to contract furniture to new sustainable materials for the production industry.
www.mathieu.se View all products→
Matti Klenell
Mattias Stenberg
Mattias Stenberg was born in 1975 and now lives and operates in Stockholm, Sweden, where he established SVA&D in 2010. He originally trained as an engineer and researcher in Sweden and in the US and holds an M.Sc and a Licentiate degree in Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where he has also studied Architecture. View all products→
Nanni Holén
Nanni Holén is a freelance product and furniture designer since 2004. Her studio is based in Stockholm and materials and the procedure vary depending on the project, but the bottom line is always to focus on simplicity, clarity and sustainability. View all products→
Nina Jobs
Nina Jobs strives for simplicity and a clear-cut relationship to nature. With a background as a graphic designer, Nina studied product design at the Ecole Nationale Supériuere des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. She has worked with companies like IKEA, Uniqlo, MoMA, Askul Japan, Gärsnäs, Abstracta and Ericsson. Nina has also been working for the Swedish Government to curate Swedish Design and Architecture exhibitions in Asia and the US. View all products→
Ragnheiður Ösp Sigurðardóttir
Relief Group
The Relief Group was formed by Professor Signe Persson-Melin during her time at Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Today, most of the group’s members are well-known, established designers. The group consists of Signe Persson-Melin, Mia Eklund Göransson, Ann-Britt Haglund, Catharina Kippel, Jonas Lindholm and Anna Livén West. View all products→
Sara Szyber
Sara Szyber is n interior designer working with product and furniture design, interiors and exhibitions. She has been a board member of Svensk Form since 2014. View all products→
Stig Ahlström
Stig graduated from Konstfack, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm with a degree in Interior Design. In 1972 Stig started his own architecture studio and his many exciting commissions have garnered numerous design prizes. View all products→
Studio Dejawu
2017 Formex Nova winner Qian Jiang is a full-fledged industrial designer educated at Jiangnan University in China and at Lund University in Sweden. Since his studies at the master’s programme in industrial design in 2014 he’s kept busy with work for different industries and agencies including brands like Normann Copenhagen and Nicholai Wiig Hansen Design. In 2015 he established his own design studio: Studio Dejawu. The name of studio is derived from the sense of unfamiliar-familiarity (Déjà vu) and Wu in Chinese means object. This combination contains a philosophy that drives and directs the studio’s design process. They believe the daily objects that people are willing to use more are those that can reflect their experience more. View all products→
Takafumi Nemoto
Takafumi Nemoto was born in Japan. He has worked as a designer and business planner for a manufacturer of car components. Since he graduated from his Master’s in product design at ECAL (École Canto- nale d’Art de Lausanne), his studio has predominantly designed elec- tronic products in Tokyo. He works from an actively global perspective with local references since he lived in Singapore and Switzerland. He was awarded “Young Japanese Design Talent” 2015 by EDIDA / ELLE DÉCOR, and “LEXUS NEW TAKUMI PROJECT 2017”, where he represented Saitama Prefecture. View all products→
Timo Sarpaneva
Professor Timo Sarpaneva (1926 — 2006) was one of Finland’s most well-known industrial designers and artists, renowned for his textile and glass products. Timo was convinced that even small everyday objects can posses architectonical qualities. He collaborated during his whole career with Iittala, where he designed tableware, his cast-iron pot with wooden handle, and even Iittala’s logotype. He also worked with glass sculptures for Venini in Murano, Italy, textile design for Kinnasand and several Finnish textile manufacturers like Tempella, the extraordinary Suomi full-line dinner service for Rosenthal, and the Timo tumbler for Design House Stockholm in 1998. View all products→