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Swedish design studio Front is breaking with tradition. In an industry dominated by men, the firm is instead led by four women. And in a scene driven all too often by ego, Front takes a fully collaborative approach. “We never design individually,” explains member Sofia Lagerkvist. “The outcome is always better if we work together.” Having met while studying industrial design at Stockholm’s Konstfack, the quartet, which united in 2003, has maintained an intimate practice ever since, and so far the ethos is paying off.   MORE >>

Swedish design studio Front is breaking with tradition. In an industry dominated by men, the firm is instead led by four women. And in a scene driven all too often by ego, Front takes a fully collaborative approach. “We never design individually,” explains member Sofia Lagerkvist. “The outcome is always better if we work together.” Having met while studying industrial design at Stockholm’s Konstfack, the quartet, which united in 2003, has maintained an intimate practice ever since, and so far the ethos is paying off.

At this year’s Salone del Mobile alone, Front showcased six different projects, including new pieces for Moroso, Skitsch, Moooi, Established & Sons, Porro and Veuve Clicquot. But this is no overnight success story. Collections such as 2004’s Design by...including a UV-sensitive wallpaper and vases that appear to tumble off the shelf—introduced Front’s expertise in exposing the small, often disregarded phases of the design practice. This year, they continue to do so by toying with the notion of image.

“All the 2009 projects are connected, but approached in different ways,” explains Lagerkvist. For Moroso, the team created the illusion of texture and three-dimensions by printing furniture upholstery with photorealistic imagery. The seat cushions of the Kuddsofa appear to balance on their edges, while the Soft Wood sofa disguises a comfortable seat with a fabric that mimics wood. The idea is similar but simplified in the storage collection for Porro. On the credenza, a line illustration conveys weave patterns, while the armoire resembles the twinkle of wind-tousled curtains. Each piece emphasizes how little is needed for a designer to fool the eye. “We want these pieces to play on the knowledge we have about objects,” Lagerkvist says. “They’re intended to make people think about their presumptions of everyday furniture.” It’s this intelligent sense of fun that has propelled the foursome into the big leagues of international design. And it’s this desire to challenge old preconceptions that will keep them there-together. frontdesign.se   << LESS

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Ever since he graduated from The Design Academy Eindhoven in 1991, the Rotterdam-based Richard Hutten has put his fingerprints on products for some of the world’s top design houses. He worked as part of the Dutch collective Droog for almost a decade, and in the past year alone has dreamed up office furniture for Lensvelt, fabric for Väveriet, a Moooi lamp, even a stamp for the Royal Dutch Post. Yet, the versatile talent has always made time for personal projects—installations, limited-edition pieces and museum interiors—that let him experiment in the realm of fine arts.   MORE >>

Ever since he graduated from The Design Academy Eindhoven in 1991, the Rotterdam-based Richard Hutten has put his fingerprints on products for some of the world’s top design houses. He worked as part of the Dutch collective Droog for almost a decade, and in the past year alone has dreamed up office furniture for Lensvelt, fabric for Väveriet, a Moooi lamp, even a stamp for the Royal Dutch Post. Yet, the versatile talent has always made time for personal projects—installations, limited-edition pieces and museum interiors—that let him experiment in the realm of fine arts.

Last spring he riffed on the concept of layers via furniture that, as Hutten attests, “has to be read as a statement, a plea for more depth in the design world.” He showed the Prinses op de Erwt fairytale bed concept—seven, randomly stacked mattresses, each upholstered in a different damask—and Muybridge (middle), a chair composed of 53 black-and-white self-portraits, enlarged, laser-cut into MDF slabs and then glued together. As Hutten says, the conceptual and manual coincide and overlap.

Elsewhere, his Book Table (2008, top) was a stratum of second-hand hardcovers finished with a resin-coat, but Hutten doesn’t credit this for its durability. “The idea will be valid over a long period of time, and the people who own it will pass it to the next generation.” Designer, artist and anthropologist, Hutten stirs the discourse. “It’s about objects and what we can read in them, the stories they can tell.” A year later, and Hutten unveiled his magical, mirror-finish Cloud Chair (opposite) at this April’s Salone del Mobile. In situ, the sculptural piece absorbs and reflects its surroundings. In fact, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum commissioned a 1:7 scale chair for one of its 17th-century dollhouses. The miniature was set in a room covered with paintings of clouds for a sublime visual pun.

One of only 12, the bubbly, aluminum-cast and nickel-plated chair creates a seat with a sweeping scoop, harkening back to the Bauhaus masterpiece Cantilever Chair (1926) by fellow Dutchman Mart Stam. “There is an overkill of designs with a lot of form, but with a lack of content,” Hutten says, “a visual pollution for getting into magazines, rather than being a part of peoples’ life.” The Cloud furthers his ongoing fascination with circles and orbs, appearing in his transportable stool Zzzidt (2000), double-handled Dombo mug (2002), and, most directly, in his Christofle housewares collection Atomes d’Argent (2007, bottom near left).

Since 1997, Hutten has also put his touch on temples to architecture, art and film, recently finishing the interiors for Museum Fredericianum (bottom far left) in Germany, completing a chair for the Zuiderzee Museum in Holland and assembling a monolith of his cultural projects.

“A museum is a good place to work,” Hutten attests, “You get a lot of freedom, and the work is understood.” Plus he sometimes gets to helm the furnishings inside, pieces that may go into production for the world at large. For example, the wedding guests of The Netherlands’ Prince Willem-Alexander sat on Hutten’s polyurethane Centraal Museum chair (1998), but it’s also a seating option at a Kentucky Fried Chicken near Hutten’s studio. Fine arts meets fast-food, and he likes the contrast.

“The functional aspect of furniture is always the starting point, but never the finishing point. I became a designer—not a sculptor—because I like that my work can be used. I prefer the word ‘use’ above ‘functionality,’ because I think any good piece of art has a function, not just design.” richardhutten.com, ormond-editions.com   << LESS