The ‘Super Normal’ work of Jasper Morrison.
“From quite early on, I developed an extreme sensitivity to atmosphere. I feel good in some spaces and very bad in others. Eventually, I recognised that design was the tool to improve atmosphere, and that seems to be my role — to take care of the man-made environment, to the extent that I am able to”. – Jasper Morrison
Born in Chelsea in 1959, London.
His father’s work lead the the family move to upstate New York, then to Frankfurt, Germany. At the age of 8, Jasper was sent back to England to attend boarding school. “The England that I grew up in was very dark and kind of over upholstered. Every interior had curtains and carpets and to be in a modern interior suddenly was a very new experience and a very positive one. This is a memory from the time when I was very young, which impressed me a lot,” Morrison observed, in an interview in 1999.
At the age of 16, he visited the Eileen Gray exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London…”I saw a language which I could relate to and which I understood […] I realised before I left the museum that I wanted to design furniture.”
The Handlebar Table was one of Morrison’s earliest designs, developed at home for his final year at Kingston Polytechnic. Inspired by Marcel Breuer’s bended tubular steel … “Looking back at it now I would say the most relevant and important success of the design for my future development was the successful combination of the three materials – wood, aluminium and glass – in their natural states. The somewhat eccentric shape of the table itself was fitting to the mood of the time and my own frame of mind. A kind of poetic, anti-establishment, business-like attitude!”
He has gone on to design furniture and products for Flos, Magis and Alessi to name but a few… Examples include the Hal chair, the Rotary Tray, Glo-ball, Air Chair, and KnifeForkSpoon. Over the decades he has honed his expertise in designing objects that are simple and familiar in form yet brilliantly characterful and refreshing.
Together with his colleague Naoto Fukasawa, he defined the term ‘super normal’, which in his opinion answers the question of what ‘good design’ should really be. Morrison has developed several projects in collaboration with Vitra, including the NesTable, the Soft Modular Sofa and the Cork family.
One of Morrison’s latest pieces for Vitra is a successful translation of the ‘simple’ design principles and the distinctive comfort of the classic cantilever chair, into an ergonomic model made of 100% recyclable polypropylene: EVO-C.
The chair, true to Morrison’s aesthetic, with a shape determined purely by the need for stability and comfort, and no unnecessary ornamentation.
Explore Jasper Morrison’s design oeuvre at minima.