George Sowden

George J. Sowden (born 1942 in Leeds, UK) is a designer and product developer. He studied architecture at Gloucestershire College of Art in the 1960s. He moved to Milano in 1970 where he started working with Ettore Sottsass and Olivetti. In 1981, he was one of the co-founders^[1] of the Memphis Group, the design movement that had a significant impact on design aesthetics in the eighties.

The same year he founded his design studio, SowdenDesign, and has since collaborated with numerous world famous companies, such as Olivetti, Alessi, Bodum, Guzzini, Lorenz, Rancilio, Steelcase, Swatch, Segis, Memphis, IPM, Moulinex, Telecom Italia, Tefal and Pyrex.

George Sowden has received numerous awards including, in 1991, the prestigious ADI Compasso d'Oro Award for design excellence Olivetti, Fax OFX420.

In 2010, Sowden developed the SoftBrew coffee brewing device now distributed and sold throughout the world.^[2]

References

1. Design Museum Page on Memphis
2. Green, Penelope. "George Sowden, an Industrial Designer". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-09-19.

• Baacke, R.-P., Brandes, U. & Erlhoff, M., Design als Gegenstand: der neue Glanz der Dinge (Frölich & Kaufmann, Berlin, 1983) ISBN 3-88725-008-7
• Barbara Radice, Memphis: research, experiences, results, failures, and successes of new design (Rizzoli, New York, 1984) ISBN 0-8478-0569-7
• Silvia Katz, Classic plastics: from bakelite to high-tech : with a collector's guide. (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984) ISBN 0-500-01347-0
• Andrea Branzi, The hot house: Italian new wave design (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984) ISBN 0-500-27348-0
• Penny Sparke, Design in Italy: 1870 to the present (Abbeville Press, New York, 1988) ISBN 0-89659-884-5
• M. Collins, A. Papadakēs, Post-modern design (Rizzoli, New York, 1989) ISBN 0-8478-1136-0
• British Design & Art Direction in collaboration with RotoVision, The product book (Crans-près-Céligny, Switzerland, 1999) ISBN 2-88046-394-7
• Fiell, C., Fiell, P., Haag, C., & Safavi, P., Designing the 21st century. (Taschen, Koln, 2001) ISBN 3-8228-5883-8
• Peter Zec, Who's who in design. Vol. 2. (AVedition, Stuttgart, 2003) ISBN 3-89986-002-0
• Terence Conran, Max Fraser, Designers on design (Conran Octopus, London, 2004) ISBN 1-84091-400-9
• Fiell, Charlotte, and Peter Fiell., 1000 Lights. Vol. 2 (Taschen, Koln, 2005) ISBN 3-8228-2475-5

External links

• George Sowden's Official site
• Sowden SoftBrew official site
• Biography from 'Art and Culture'
• Biography on 'Ketterer Kunst Gallery'
• Design samples on 'Artnet'