Quote

Over the years, I observed that many talented graphic designers, including those in my own family, had difficulty getting their designs to market. I thought it would be possible to hold open stationery design competitions where all designers could participate.

I went to Goldsmith College of Art in London in the '80s and there I made sculptures, but the objects had nothing to do with how I was thinking. I was making beautifully sanded wooden boxes!

When I was 18, I began attending college for art and design, and I designed all sorts of things from furniture to industrial designs and even watches.

From a relatively early age I got interested in business.

The exposure I have had to beautiful materials across the world, from Japan to Italy, enables me to pull design ideas together. This, combined with years of historical research, has created a great fountain of ideas for me.

I came from product design originally - I had been designing dolls for a toy company since I was 16 - so I'm used to working with plastic and different things. I had an innate interest in objects.

For my first apartment, when I was first married, I went to the lumberyard and bought stuff and made couches. My then-wife made cushions. I was really very interested in furniture. I was in school for architecture, but I had to live, and making furniture was different from designing buildings, which I couldn't do for myself.

I'm drawn to furniture design as complete architecture on a minor scale.

I want young people to be able to buy into what I design. When I was young, I wanted to buy designer brands even if all I could afford was the cheapest wallet, the cheapest pen, the cheapest T-shirt because I wanted to be a part of it.

From the time I was a kid, I was always interested in any and all kinds of new business ideas.