DESIGNER’s STORY
Stephen Burks is both a traveler and a designer.
For over a decade, Stephen Burks has dedicated his work to building a bridge between authentic craft traditions, industrial manufacturing, and contemporary design.
Since 2005, Burks has consulted with nonprofits including Aid to Artisans, the Clinton Global Initiative, Design Network Africa, Artesanias de Colombia and the Nature Conservancy, uniting the artisan, the designer, and global brands in a triangle of immersive development.
With his New York–based studio, Stephen Burks Man Made, Burks has produced innovative products, furniture, lighting, and exhibitions for a range of international clients including B&B Italia, Boffi, Cappellini, Dedar, Dedon, Harry Winston, Missoni, Moroso, Parachilna, Roche Bobois and Swarovski.
Burks has exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Arts and Design, as well as receiving numerous accolades including the Illinois Institute of Technology Alumni Professional Achievement Award, the Brooklyn Museum Young Modernist Award, the Architektur & Wohnen Audi Mentor Prize and the 2008 United States Artists Architecture & Design Target Fellowship Grant.
Stephen Burks is the 2015 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award winner in Product Design.
READ MORE BRAND DESIGNER’s STORIES
Ferréol Babin dedicates half of his time collaborating with various furniture and lighting editors where he can incorporate his singular vision and approach of design. The other half is spent on making unique pieces, with an obvious brutalist yet delicate approach.
The passion for objects meant as industrial products is the glue of the professional partnership between Alfredo Chiaramonte and Marco Marin, promoting partners of the homonymous Designstudio.
Under label NO-MADE Cleo Maxime and Linde Freya, who met at the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2008, collaborate on creating objects that combine their interest in materials and cultural dialogue. Working ‘apart together’ they aim to combine their forces and views on aesthetics to create tactile, elegant and sturdy objects.
Earned his degree in Industrial Design in 1986 in Barcelona, he moves to New York to joint the Vignellis Studio. After four years, he was engaged at Ralph Lauren focusing his work in both furniture and interior design. Return to Barcelona in 1998 and began to collaborate with Grupo Inditex (Zara Group) as a creative
Alex Josephson cofounded PARTISANS in 2012 after studying architecture at the University of Waterloo, the University of Rome, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA). PARTISANS is comprised of architects, designers, thinkers, and cultural enthusiasts whose work across all scales is devoted to a cause: high-performance design that strives to make the improbable possible.
Harry Thaler is a product designer whose work reinterprets fundamental design typologies by combining high-quality and traditional craftsmanship with clever and innovative forms.
