Elemental Store

Jason Miller was born in 1971 in New York. He received a BA from Indiana University in 1993 and a MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 1995. Between 1995 and 2001, Jason worked as a studio assistant for Jeff Koons, an art director for Ogilvy and Mather and a designer for Karim Rashid. He began his own collection of work in 2001. Since then Miller has been featured in numerous publications and has received a number of national and international design awards.

Stephen Reed graduated in Product and Furniture Design at Ravensbourne College in 2005 and was nominated for Young Designer of the Year in 2006. After working for Thomas Heatherwick he set up a studio in London designing for Charles and Marie, Fred Inc, Back4, Scarab Creative, the Emerald Fund and the Sorrell Foundation.

Maxim Velcovsky is one of the Czech Republic’s leading young artists. Most of his work is in porcelain and involves using everyday objects whose function follow form; among his best-known pieces are a vase in the shape of a Wellington boot and a porcelain version of a typical water cooler paper cup. He is also known for a huge fiberglass crucifix, which stands in a Protestant church in Hradec Kralove.

Sam Johnson is a designer of furniture, domestic objects and installations. His practice is based somewhere in the East End of London. Sam first met Thorsten in 1999 when Thorsten interviewed him for a job at a furniture store; it was love at first sight, even if Sam didn’t get the job. They met again a few years later on a train to Birmingham where they hatched a plan to launch a product, the rest, as they say, is history.

Tristan Zimmermann studied industrial design at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Canada. Upon graduation in 2004 Tristan assumed the position of senior product designer at an international bio-medical device company. Tristan formed Science and Sons in 2005 as a side venture to sate his own creative musings. Science and Sons has since remained the masthead under which the eccentric miscellany of his creative acumen is codified into a palatable format. In his work he aims to elegantly distort and defy the status quo, while indulging the overlooked, broken and forgotten.

Ron Gilad was born in Tel Aviv in 1972. Ron Gilad graduated with a degree in industrial design from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. From 1999-2001 he taught 3D Design at the Shenkar Academy of Engineering + Design, during which time he developed one of a kind objects which he later exhibited at shows. In 2001 he moved to New York and co-founded Designfenzider from where he designs, produces and distributes his works around the world. In 2006 he began to teach at the Pratt Institute in NYC.

Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Tobias Wong creates in New York. After studying art and architecture, he graduated in sculpture from The Cooper Union. Wong treats design as a medium rather than a discipline, to show how it embraces the aesthetics traditionally relegated to the fine arts. He's coined the term “paraconceptual” to describe his dismantling of the hierarchies between “art” and “design,” since in his hands, both have similar goals.

Richardson, Brill, Williams is a Manhattan-based, collaborative design studio and consultancy. RBW creates environments, furniture and product design where the work draws primarily from the reinvention of materials. Each member has a different point of view; one explicitly loves materiality and interior spaces, another has an unconventional color palette and eye for sculptural form, and the third is an inventor, who brings spontaneity and theatrical energy to the work. Rich Brilliant Willing was named among the "Top 40" emerging designers by ID Magazine in January 2009.

Richard Shed practices in the areas of Product, Spatial and Interaction Design and Research. The studio offers a conceptually innovative, creative approach paired with practical understanding of materials, processes and context. The practice provides consultancy to companies, design and development of products for mass manufacture and small batch production, cross discipline and collaborative projects, as well as applied research and development for both industry and academic institutions.

Roberto Cárdenas studied product design at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm and has a university degree in art. As a member of the Chilean artist group Pintores Portugueses de Valparaíso, he took part in several celebrated exhibitions in South America and has received several awards for his art and poetry in Chile. He has also worked as an art teacher at high school and university levels.

Peter Mac Cann likes stuff, so he did a Masters in Stuff and Things and then started designing his own stuff. He met Thorsten when he was selling other people’s stuff at SCP. Thorsten liked some of Peter’s things and decided he would try to sell that stuff. Since then Peter has designed some more stuff for Thorsten and a few things for some other people as well, such as furniture, lighting, accessories, and that kind of stuff. Peter now does his stuff in Dublin.

Munich-based Matthias Demacker is an established designer who has worked with many well-known European design brands. He has also worked for several design offices but in 2003 he set up his own shop, demackerdesign. Demacker inspires through attention evoking designs.

Born in 1986, Matthew Kinealy has a fresh and exciting approach. A 3-D designer with an interest in all aspects of design. Graduated in 2007 from the Arts Institute at Bournemouth with a first class BA in Three Dimensional Design, specializing in Product Design. Kinealy likes to bring a sense of humor into his work and enjoys making usual things unusual. The relationship between objects and their users and the way in which people interact with products is evident in his work. Kinealy is inspired by film, television and the media, seeking growth by responding to the ideas of other designers with his own design.

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.

Marcel Wanders grew up in Boxtel, Netherlands, and graduated Cum Laude from the School of the Arts Arnhem in 1988. Marcel Wanders’ fame started with his iconic Knotted Chair, which he produced for Droog Design in 1996. He is now ubiquitous, designing for the biggest European contemporary design manufacturers like B+B Italia, Bisazza, Poliform, Moroso, Flos, Boffi, Cappellini, Droog Design and Moooi of which he is also art director and co-owner. Founded in 2000, Moooi has grown into an internationally renowned design label.

Originally from Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Lucas Maasen brings the simple form of a chair to life through subtle additions. Maassen started exploring this boundary in 2002 by listing dollhouse chairs for sale on Ebay without mentioning their scale or true nature. They became real furniture in the mind of potential buyers who placed bids on the items. Small changes on the convention of chairs have granted them life, mainly the removal of rear legs and sometimes the addition of feet, arms and hands.

The design collaborative of Lovegrove + Repucci was formed by Nicholas Lovegrove and Demian Repucci in 2003. Their unique brand of design sensibility is a product of combined experience living and working in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. Their company has extensive experience designing furniture and products as well as executing interior environment design, retail concepts and brand development concepts for clients such as restaurants, hotels, fashion brands and retail companies.

Poul Christiansen is an architect born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1947. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen, class of 1973. Boris Berlin is an industrial and graphic designer and was born in Leningrad in 1953. He’s a graduate of the Institute of Applied Arts and Design in Leningrad since 1975. “We believe that good design is not just a solution of the primary so called pure functional problems, but creation of the message, that fills objects and concepts with cultural, philosophic aesthetic and poetic content.”

Kensaku Oshiro was born in Okinawa in 1977. Oshiro graduated from the Polytechnic School of Milan in 1999 and started his career in several design studios. At the moment he is working at Lissoni Associates, as well as collaborating as an independent designer for different companies.

Katarina Häll graduated from Beckmans College of Design in 2006, and specializes in product, furniture, interior, and exhibition design. Her works often add a poetic twist to everyday objects. Poem was a part of her final project at Beckmans.She works with contemporary design through products, furniture, interior- and exhibition design, both with self-initiated projects and commissioned works. Functionalism, simplicity and a sense of poetry are all elements that best describe Hall’s work.

Karl Zahn creates a deep emotional relationship with his work. Some people have a tendency to hold on to certain products long after their use. Either its function was well met, or it had some emotional significance that kept them from parting with it. Zahn believes in recreating life in his products in an ecological way, using recycled products and giving what is left of them; new life.

Julie Storm strives to make products that are simple and thoughtful. These two parameters are a great strength in the Danish design tradition. Storm wishes to maintain and develop this approach towards the profession and in the simple design and conceptualized product-seeking to solve problems in existing functions and products in our daily lives.

The work of artist and designer Josh Owen is at once simple, practical and creative. Although typologies that Owen creates are commonly described as refined, iconic or minimalist, he defines function in humanistic terms, combining clarity of purpose and functional efficacy with emotive and tactile qualities. Owen is the President of Josh Owen LLC in Philadelphia and is an associate professor of industrial design at Philadelphia University. Owens work is included in museum collections, major exhibitions, and numerous books on design, and is regularly featured in design periodicals from around the globe.

After his study at the Rotterdam Academy of Arts, Jos became known as inventor of odd and extraordinary products. He raises the status of cast-off things by giving them a second life, using the slogan: “Touch up your daily life with daily life!”

In 1992 Joop Steenkamer Jr. received his degree from the Delft Technical University Department of Industrial Design. He subsequently founded Steenkamer Design, which sees its products through from idea to production. Steenkamer believes: sometimes a product can solve a problem. “By executing the idea and making sure it reaches consumers, you can solve the problem preferably for as many people as possible.”

Jonas Hakaniemi (b. 1975) graduated from Lahti Institute of design in Spring of 2009. Before studying, he worked for almost 10 years at an advertising agency, a printing house and a newspaper. Coming up, Hakaniemi will concentrate on product, interior, and graphic design.

Jonas Damon founded “Office for Design” in 2001 to create objects rooted in the exploration of new ways to engage existing materials. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Damon was raised in Germany and worked in Paris and London before establishing Office for Design in New York City. In London he developed furniture and lighting for Tom Dixon's Eurolounge, before becoming a design manager at the European retail group Habitat UK where he revived the brands reputation as the leading European retailer for home goods.

Job Smeets was born in 1970 in Belgium and studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven. He established his own studio, Job, in 1998. Nynke Tynagel was born in 1977 in the Netherlands and joined Job after graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2000. Smeets and Tynagel believe their designs are about freedom. Design is a universal language spoken with shapes instead of words. Their design consists of an important interaction between the onlooker and the object, its both intuitive and direct.

Jason Miller was born in 1971 in New York. He received a BA from Indiana University in 1993 and a MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 1995. Between 1995 and 2001, Jason worked as a studio assistant for Jeff Koons, an art director for Ogilvy and Mather and a designer for Karim Rashid. He began his own collection of work in 2001. Since then Miller has been featured in numerous publications and has received a number of national and international design awards.

Harry Allen was born in 1964. In his relatively short career (graduated from Pratt in 1994), he has established himself as an accomplished multi-disciplinarian, able to bring fresh vision to tired product types through form and material. His work spans the gamut from interior design to product and graphic design. His first major success was a ceramic foam lamp that was featured in the 1994 MoMA exhibition ‘Mutant Materials’. The difference between appearance and reality make an indelible impression; a theme he incorporates into all his pieces.

Harri graduated from the Institute of Art and Design in Helsinki. The Block Lamp was an immediate hit when it was launched in 1996 and has been showered with many design awards, including Excellent Swedish Design ‘98, the Design Plus Award at the Ambiente Trade Fair in Frankfurt ‘99 and Best New Product at the Accent Show in NYC in ‘99; and is now a part of the permanent collection at MoMA, New York. Among his clients are Marimekko, Magis, MUJI, Swarovski, and many others. Harri was awarded the prestigious Torsten and Wanja Söderberg’s prize in 2009.

Industrial designer Gustav Hallén got a bachelor degree in industrial design and a master degree in interaction design. After experiences at IDEO Product Development, Gustav went off on his own, and is today working with product development but also with interaction and graphic design. Gustav graduated as an interaction designer from the Umeå Institute of Design. His creations include one of the first Skype telephones in Sweden. His wide range of commissions has resulted in telephones, furniture, high-tech glasses, interactive graphics for TV and more.

Gitta Gschwendtner includes in her design consultancy furniture, interior, exhibition design and public art for her clients. The studio specializes in a tailor-made approach to design. Each project is carefully researched and every solution is an individual response to the needs of the particular project, be it corporate or public. The designs are narrative at heart and are derived from careful problem solving rather than style alone.

Patrick Fredrickson and Ian Stallard began their collaboration in 1995 and have since become internationally recognized as leading exponents of British Avant-Garde Design. Their cutting-edge, conceptually rigorous work is highly regarded by the cognoscenti, sought after by discerning collector, and has gained them many accolades. They have worked with some of the leading names in contemporary design, including David Gil Galleries, Contrasts Gallery, Swarovski, Droog Design, Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, MoMA, Paul Smith, Tools Galerie, Thorsten Van Elten and The Conran Shop, to name a few.

Form us with Love is a Swedish design studio inspired by the interaction between people and products; driven by a genuine love for design. The group consists of design trio John Löfgren, Jonas Pettersson and Petrus Palmér. Work from Form Us With Love includes furniture and lighting for several internationally recognized design firms and awards such as the “Red Dot Design Award” and the “Young Swedish Design Award”.

Eva studied furniture and product design at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm. Soon after graduation in 2001 she received a number of significant design awards in Sweden. Her Gardener’s Sofa and Table won the Excellent Swedish Design award in 2002, and is featured in the Design Collection at the National Museum in Stockholm. Go Eva!

Eric Morel was born in Paris in 1977. After training as a product designer at the ESAD in Reims, France he graduated from the Design Academy in Eindhoven, the Netherlands under the supervision of Droog Design co-founder Gijs Bakker. Since 2003 he has developed products and concepts for the home. As in-house designer and creative director of one of Europe's leading corporate gift companies, Eric Morel has also worked on projects for clients such as Nike, Philips, Canon, Atos Origin, Fortis Bank, Unlimited DSM and Hitachi.

Ed Carpenter is an artist specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon, Carpenter collaborates with a variety of expert consultants, sub-contractors, and studio assistants. He personally oversees every step of each commission, and installs them himself with a crew of long-time helpers, except in the case of larger objects, such as bridges.

Dominic Wilcox is definitely an ideas man. His designs never fail to get attention, whether melting toy soldiers into a bowl, creating a leather-clad washing machine or protecting cars and bikes against theft. With studies at the Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art in the UK, Wilcox combines intelligence and experience to provoke a groan of “Argh, why didnt I think of that?!” but the biggest draw is his underlying humor.

David Weeks founded his New York-based studio to focus on the design and development of products for commercial and residential interiors. The studio’s recent projects include seating and lighting collections for Ralph Pucci International, a bar interior in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and consumer product development for Kikkerland and AREAWARE. Originally from Athens, Georgia, Weeks earned a BFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and then worked with jeweler Ted Muehling before founding David Weeks Studio in 1996.

Constantin Boym was born in Moscow, Russia in 1955, where he graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute. In 1984-85 he earned a Master's degree in design from Domus Academy in Milan. In 1986 he founded Boym Partners Inc. in New York City. His studio's design included tableware for Alessi and Authentics, watches for Swatch, and exhibition installations for many American museums, including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

Designer Camilla Kropp was born in Finland in 1975, and works nowadays as freelance designer in Germany. She has studied design in Sweden and UK; where she acquired her MA degree at the London Royal College of Art, Department of Ceramics and Glass in 2001. Kropp received training on ceramic design at Arabia, and on glass design at the Nuutajärvi glass factory in Finland. She has received grants from the foundation for Swedish Culture in Finland and was the first prize winner of the “Young Swedish Form” Award in 1998.

Boje Estermann was born in 1961. After working in the private sector as CEO for a French company for 8 years, he had a radical career change when he decided to enter the school of Design 'ENSCI- Les Ateliers' in Paris. Estermann graduated in 1999 and in 2000 founded the design studio 'Request' in Paris, which later became “Boje Estermann Design Studio. “I usually design products by analyzing my own desires. I try to give them a personal touch without losing the functionality”.

Founded in 2005 and based in Lausanne, Switzerland Big-Game is a design studio conformed by Gregoire Jeanmond (Swiss), Elric Petit (Belgian) and Augustin Scott de Martinville (French). Taking basic elements as starting points, such as a material, a principle or an archetype, Big-Game transforms these into functional, design objects that challenge meaning and convention.

Barnaby Barford is an artist who works with ceramics to create unique narrative pieces from found porcelain figurines. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002. He has been the subject of several solo exhibitions in the UK, and has shown in major exhibitions in the US and Japan. In 2004 he was named Young Designer of the Year by Wallpaper magazine. Barford has designed various products for Thorsten in collaboration with Andre Klauser, Valeria Miglioli and on his own.

Andre Klauser was born in Hanover, Germany in 1972. He graduated in Design from Fh Munster in 2000. From 1999 he worked for Jasper Morrison at his Office for Design in London time during which he applied for a Post Graduate Course at the Royal College of Art where he graduated in 2002 (MA RCA). Andre decided to stay in London where he set up his own practice that same year. He currently works from his studio in East London on a wide range of design led projects. Next to his solo projects he often works in collaboration with Ed Carpenter under the name "Klauser and Carpenter".

Alissia Melka Teichroew got her degree in fine arts in design and the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. She then got her Master’s in industrial design in 2004 from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Teichroews designs are savvy, sophisticated and witty. She has created ceramic plates folded in easy-to-hold shapes, a diamond ring rendered in candy-colored acrylic, an inside-out champagne flute, a cultured pearl necklace collection, a simple band ring collection, shot glasses and unique hanging mirrors, among others.