Beyond beauty, beyond even the purity of function, for Josh there is meaning. This is what guides his work and life, a continuous search for the essence of things.
Nathaniel Popkin
Writer
Bonafides
Josh Owen is an award winning, internationally renowned industrial designer, author, and educator. His studio’s work is produced by significant manufacturers in the US and Europe, and the projects are featured in many permanent museum collections around the globe.
Learn about the studio
Approach
Because Owen’s varied roles are in high demand, we are selective about the commissions from industry that the studio accepts. We work on fewer projects but focus on building quality relationships over quantity, accounting for the attention and accolades given to our work by the media, industry, and cultural sectors.
The questions his designs are asking are fundamentally moral, not interested in what we can do but what we should do in order to move humanity forward.
Mathias Schwartz-Clauss
Curator and Director Domaine du Boisbuchet
Synergy
In our studio, there is a great deal of reciprocity between Owen’s role as an educator and his identity as a designer. He is constantly distilling the lessons he collects from industry into the classroom creating learning opportunities for the next generation of designers. Conversely Owen brings these lessons back to our clients to enlighten them about what is possible when thinking beyond the bottom line. He chronicled these lessons in his recent book “Lenses for Design.”
A designer spends years, even decades, observing culture, looking for patterns, trying experiments, failing, learning, and trying again in an endless crawl toward a cultural sensibility that may finally enable him to create ‘things’ that actually contribute something to the world.
It requires a tireless optimist who is equal parts maker, thinker, philosopher, artist, entrepreneur, social scientist, engineer, critic, and collaborator.
In addition to this mix, it takes someone with empathy for others who honestly wants to improve things.
A small minority of designers embody all of these qualities, and even fewer do so with the zen-like calm of Josh Owen.
Even at his young age, Josh is reaching sage status—able to translate his wisdom into useful principles.
Scott Klinker
3D Designer in Residence
Cranbrook Academy of Art
