Furniture factory Tom Dixon.

Tom Dixon is a famous industrial designer of our time. His works are recognizable at first glance by their frame structures and the predominance of metal.

Tom Dixon's work is of interest to many young designers, as is the story of his success and career. His life became an example comprehensive development and the courage of choice. To follow the life of an extraordinary creative person: bass guitarist, welder, then art director of Habitat and Artek, let's take a look at the biography of Tom Dixon.

The designer was born in the Tunisian city of Sfax in 1959. His mother is from Latvia, and his father is British. When the future designer was 4 years old, his family moved to the UK. Tom spent his childhood in London and went to school. IN adolescence Dixon entered art school. However, his studies had to be interrupted due to a serious motorcycle accident, after which he spent three months in a hospital bed.

After being expelled from school, the boy began to play the bass guitar and performed in rock bands. A few years later, he again had an accident (also on a motorcycle) and was unable to participate in musical performances for a long time.

For two years, the young man worked as a storekeeper in the basement of a nightclub. At the same time, I was interested in welding. Due to his nocturnal lifestyle, he had a lot of time to experiment. As a result, welding finally captured the guy’s attention.

Dixon himself, recalling his youth, says that both accidents radically changed his life and prospects. The first killed the diligent student in him, the second - the musician, bass guitarist. Speaking about life, designer Tom Dixon notes that he is not sure whether he would have had a welding machine in his hands if two life-threatening accidents had not occurred.

At that time, welding had nothing to do with design. He was fascinated by the thin strips of molten metal and delighted by the very ability to create solid metal structures in a matter of seconds.

He looked at London differently from others. He saw pieces of scrap metal - unnecessary parts for future masterpieces.

Due to his night job, Dixon had no financial resources, he could afford to create things simply for the sake of self-expression.

At age 26, Dixon opened Creative Salvage. In 1994 the studio was renamed Space, later Tom Dixon Studio.

The design studio has an official website - tomdixon.net. By visiting the resource, everyone can get acquainted with the designer’s works and the integration of masterpieces in the interior and exterior.

Quotes

• “When people started buying it, I realized that I had become an alchemist because I learned how to turn metal into gold.”
• “I saw a pile of scrap metal... One piece looked like the back of a chair, the other looked like a table leg.”
• “I’m sure I would never have gotten my hands on a welding machine if it weren’t for the motorcycle accident.”

Tom Dixon - self-taught, single professional school– one-day car bumper repair course.

Tom Dixon Projects

Tom Dixon Studio creates furniture, lamps and floor lamps. Tom Dixon also creates interior design and decor projects. Products are produced in limited editions or in single copies.

The first creations, the Kitchenchair and the S chair, did not cause much excitement among buyers and designers in the mid-80s. The Kitchenchair was a rather brutal and massive structure, and the S chair was a sophisticated wooden product. Interested in the work famous designer furniture by Giulio Cappellini. After meeting him, Dixon's career began to grow. Already in 1989 Cappellini began producing the S-chair. In 1990 the model became part of the collection American Museum contemporary art.

“We must convince people to consume less!” - says Tom Dixon. The former hooligan, lazy man, biker and bass player is today full of bitterness and is about to start preaching... He was born on May 21, 1959 in Tunisia, studied at art school in Chelsea, but left it, as well as the musical field later, due to motorcycle accidents and fractures.

A star of modern British design, he never had a formal education. That didn’t stop Tom from starting to produce limited edition items earlier than many others. At a time when Philippe Starck dreamed of filling the whole world with his juicers, Dixon opened workshops to create unique items: furniture and lamps made of metal.

TOM DIXON Industrial designer. He made his debut in 1983 with a performance at the Titanic Club in London. Then there was the Kitchen Chair (1987) made from old frying pans, and the S-Chair (1988). To this day, Cappellini produces his Pylon chair. Since 1998 - head of the design department at Habitat. Worked for Asplund, Driade, Moroso. In 2002, he founded his own company, Tom Dixon, and became famous for his Cooper Shade and Metall Balls lamps. Since 2006 - art director of Artek.

Having achieved all the honors, becoming the art director of the famous Artek factory, receiving personal exhibition V London Museum design and own production, he never forgets the help of Giulio Cappellini, creator of the international style and founder of the legendary brand. “To be honest, I don’t remember ever consciously wanting to become an industrial designer. This happened somehow gradually, after I first became an artist and then a craftsman. But I remember very well the moment when I firmly decided that there was no turning back. This happened in January 1989 at Milan airport. I was greeted by driver Giulio Cappellini with a sign that said: “Mr. Tom Dixon”...

S-Chair, Cappellini. 1991/1992. Metal, fabric.

An Englishman through and through, he is very critical of the UK. “I am not exaggerating when I say that in the 1980s, at the end of the Thatcher era, England was a cultural desert. The industry was collapsing and I saw no support for the ideas. Help from the Design Council was not serious. They were helping the wrong people." In 2002, he founded his own production company, Tom Dixon. Among the first works was the Fresh Fat series. “Fresh fat” was the name given to chairs, vessels and a wall table woven from plastic tubes. In 2003, Dixon experimented with biosoluble materials and bamboo. And he didn’t do it by accident. Tom Dixon panicked much earlier than his colleagues. In the same 2003, when most stars were designing traps for stray petrodollars, he was the first to open an Internet project called the now unusually fashionable word sustainability (“environmental sustainability”).

And Dixon is still playing ahead of the curve. “We make sofas at one end globe, then we transport them across the seas and oceans, push them into warehouses and sell them again to the other end of the earth. The furniture market is blatantly old-fashioned! One way to salvation is functional design for all times.”

Today he enjoys designing cafes and restaurants, his own corners and shops, collections of cement tiles (Tom Dixon for Bisazza) and carpets (). In January 2016, at the Paris exhibition maison&objet, he advertised his copper collections, once again confessing his love for metals.

In April 2016, he will open The Restaurant in La Rotonda della Besana, a 17th-century building in the city center, for visitors to Milan Design Week. Futuristic kitchens and dining rooms created by Tom Dixon in collaboration with Caesarstone will be displayed during an interactive installation in the interiors of a baroque church.

Project The Cinema. Tom Dixon. 2015. Wingback chairs.

Interior solution within the framework of The Cinema project. Melt lamps. 2015.

Accessories. Tom Dixon. 2015. The Cinema Project.

Adidas by Tom Dixon. Capsule collection. 2014.

Path Tom Dixon the design cannot be called traditional. "I honestly can't remember ever wanting to be a designer," he says.

Born in Tunisia, Tom moved to England with his parents at the age of 4. Not yet thinking about a career as a designer, Tom studies at art school in Chelsea until he has an accident, due to which he had to spend 3 months in hospital. Having recovered, Tom does not return to school, but, having become interested in music, becomes a bass guitarist in one of the groups. Playing in nightclubs, Tom had a lot of free time during the day, which led him to a new hobby - experimenting with scrap metal, from which he creates unusual sculptures.
Soon new accident, in which Tom breaks his arm, blocking his path to a career professional musician, and he devotes himself entirely to creating his metal objects.
Tom Dixon believes both accidents turning points of his life: “... the first accident ended my short-term studies at art school... the second ended my career as a musician. Both were motorcycle accidents, both pushed me into a new activity and gave me time to understand my further path" According to the designer, he never regretted that he did not receive vocational education This, he believes, gives him the opportunity to make his own mistakes and forge his own path in design.

In 1985, Tom Dixon opened his workshop, Creative Salvage, which in 1994 changed its name to Space. The workshop is engaged in the creation of furniture and lamps, producing items in a single copy or limited edition. His Kitchen Chair (1987) and (1988), which deliberately lacked the perfection of execution characteristic of industrially produced products, are typical of Dixon's work from this period. Soon Tom’s sculptural works attracted the attention of amateurs and professionals, among whom was Giulio Cappellini, a legend of world design, an Italian guru in the production of designer furniture. Many “stars”, such as the English Jasper Morrison and Tom Dixon, the Australian Marc Newson, the Italian Rodolfo Dordoni or the French Bouroullec brothers, “rose” on the horizon of modern industrial design thanks to Cappellini. The meeting with Cappellini opened the way for Dixon to the world of professional design. In 1989, Cappellini began producing the S chair, which in the same year joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

During the '90s, Dixon's work became less craft-oriented and more sculptural in form, with the designer's interest drawn to plastics. Most significant work this period - furniture for Cappellini. In 1994, Dixon founded EUROLOUNGE to produce his own products. And the first product released by the company and which had enormous success was a lamp or, as the designer himself says, “sitting, stacking, lighting thing.” Jack Light received the Millennium Mark Award in 1997 and soon joined the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

In 1998, Tom Dixon headed the Habitat design studio, and in 2001 he was appointed its art director. By joining a company whose policy is to make good furniture accessible to everyone, the designer marked a transition from individual creative activity to mass production. As artistic director of HABITAT, Dixon collaborates with leading designers, releasing new versions of established furniture pieces from Verner Panton, Ettore Sottsass and Robin Day, as well as selling furniture from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Enoch Hans and Mark Newson.

He continues to take on new projects as an independent designer, designing for numerous European companies as well as his own company, founded in 2001, which bears his name. In 2004, he was appointed art director of Artek, being also a co-owner of this large Finnish furniture manufacturer, founded by Alvar Aalto back in 1934. According to the designer: “Artek is perhaps the only company, which has remained unchanged since the era of modernism. It has a rich cultural and historical heritage and a unique position in Finnish society.” Tom Dixon sees his role in the company as preventing the company from withering and breathing into it new life and give it the opportunity to revive its former significance.

Dixon is also the director of the Bombay Sapphire Foundation, a long-term sponsor of innovative design ideas and organizer of the BOMBAY SAPPHIRE DESIGNER GLASS COMPETITION. With the support of the foundation, one of the latest works Dixon is the longest sofa in the world, the length of which is 45 m. The sofa was exhibited at Milan airport during the days when the famous furniture exhibition i Saloni Milano was held in Milan.

Talking about your creative method, Tom Dixon remembers the words of his friend - Italian designer Fabio Novembre - who called Dixon a "vertebral designer", meaning that at the heart of the designer's work is his interest in structure and construction, rather than their surface. Dixon says that if he had not become a designer, he would have been more likely to have been a civil engineer, as he is “more interested in inventing, designing and marketing than design itself.”

Dixon does not stop there, because there are still so many different things that he would like to work on. “Buildings and bridges, motorcycles and airplanes, watches and Cell phones, underwater cities and tidal power stations, fashion and luggage bags... and everything else that I haven't had to work on before,” says the designer.

Based on materials:
Terence Conran, Max Fraser "Designers on design", Conran Octopus Limited, 2004
Design of 20th century, Charlotte & Peter Fiell, Taschen, 2005

Tom Dixon (Tom Dixon) is an English designer, art director of the Habitat chain of stores and head of the art department at Artek.

“I was once called a “spine designer.” This means that I design from the skeleton and am not interested in the surface. This is true. A lot of designers have gone through this.”

Working in the early 80s, I could have used the experience of others, but I was blissfully unaware and tried to develop my own method - out of necessity and naive optimism.

Tom Dixon was born in Sfax, Tunisia in 1959 and moved with his family to England when he was four years old. He attended Chelsea Art School, but an accident kept him in hospital for three months. Tom was expelled from school and spent a couple of years playing bass in the disco band Funkapolitan, until another accident prevented him from performing.

Playing in nightclubs, Tom had a lot of free time during the day, which led him to a new hobby - experimenting with scrap metal, from which he creates unusual sculptures using a welding machine. A friend taught him welding techniques, and in just one lesson. He immediately began to use his newly acquired skills in his work, exploring the decorative and design possibilities of recycled materials and industrial waste. Dixon worked without sketches, using rails, building fixtures, car interiors and pots as materials.

Tom Dixon considers both accidents to be turning points in his life: “... the first accident ended my short-term studies at art school... the second ended my career as a musician. Both were motorcycle accidents, both pushed me into a new activity and gave me time to figure out my path forward.”

“I was immediately captivated by the welding... hypnotized by the thin strip of molten metal that I viewed through darkened glasses. Instant fusion of metal parts. It had nothing to do with the seriousness of the craft or the pomp of the design: it was an industry.

London at this time was still full of scrap metal, the bodies of dump trucks were filled to the top with debris, each of which seemed to me to be a potential back of a chair or a table leg. Unrestrained material problems(I had night work) or formal training, I did things just for fun. It wasn't until people started buying it that I realized I had discovered new uniform alchemy. I turned a piece of metal into gold."

In 1985, Tom Dixon opens his workshop - Creative Salvage(Creative Scrap), which in 1994 changed its name to Space. The workshop is engaged in the creation of furniture and lamps, producing items in a single copy or limited edition. The Kitchen chair (1987) and the S chair (1988), which deliberately lacked the perfection of execution characteristic of industrially produced products, are typical of Tom Dixon's work from this period. Soon Tom’s sculptural works attracted the attention of amateurs and professionals, among whom was Giulio Cappellini, a legend of world design, an Italian guru in the production of designer furniture. Many young “stars”, such as the Englishman Jasper Morrison, the Australian Marc Newson, the Italian Rodolfo Dordoni or the French Bouroullec brothers, ascended to the horizon of modern industrial design thanks to Cappellini. The meeting with Cappellini opened the way for Dixon to the world of professional design. In 1989, Cappellini began producing the S chair, which in the same year joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“Honestly, I can’t remember ever wanting to be a designer. This gradually came to me as I rejected thoughts of becoming an artist or a craftsman. Even today the idea of ​​being an industrialist is more preferable to me.

The key moment may have come at Milan airport in January 1989, when I was greeted by a CAPPELLINI driver holding a sign that read “Mr. Dixon" in his hands. Until then, I didn't see the opportunities that come from combining design and technology.

It is no exaggeration to say that England was a cultural desert in Thatcher's Eighties. The industry was experiencing a crisis and did not consider it advisable to support emerging ideas. The help we received certainly wasn't from organizations like the design council. The praise from the press was encouraging, but it was not the help we needed.

Fortunately, it was the Anglophile Giulio Cappellini who provided the production capacity and vision that opened up a whole new universe for me and many others. Suffice to say, I'm still waiting for a call from my first UK manufacturer."

During the '90s, Dixon's work became less craft-oriented and more sculptural in form, with the designer's interest drawn to plastics. The most significant works of this period are furniture for Cappellini. Dixon founded the company in 1994 EUROLOUNGE to produce their own products. And the first product released by the company and which had enormous success was the Jack light lamp or, as the designer himself says, “sitting, stacking, lighting thing.” Jack Light received the Millennium Mark Award in 1997 and soon joined the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

Appointment of Tom Dixon as art director HABITAT was considered controversial in 1998. He always worked for himself, and did not know what it was corporate culture. Founded by Sir Terence Conran and once possessing perhaps greatest influence to develop British design, HABITAT later went astray. Dixon quickly led the company out of crisis and gained authority, becoming its creative director in 2001.

“My friends and acquaintances were scared. I was jeopardizing mine creative potential… I had to enter the stuffy world of corporate politics. For me, however, it was like having a huge box of toys. All production technologies in the world - from making baskets to casting cornices. Design of any home products... from funny toys to bunk beds, forty countries, 85 stores. Everything according to affordable prices! There is no other job like this in Europe! I went from individualism to industrial production suddenly.”

By joining a company whose policy is to make good furniture accessible to everyone, the designer marked the transition from individual creative activity to mass production. As artistic director of HABITAT, Dixon collaborates with leading designers, releasing new versions of established furniture pieces from Verner Panton, Ettore Sottsass and Robin Day, as well as selling furniture from Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Enoch Hans and Mark Newson.

Tom Dixon continues to take on new projects as an independent designer, designing for a variety of European manufacturers as well as his own company, founded in 2001, which bears his name. In 2004 he was appointed art director of the company Artek, being also a co-owner of this large Finnish furniture manufacturer, founded by Alvar Aalto back in 1934.

Artek is probably the only company from the modernist era that has remained in its original form. The company has an extremely rich cultural and historical heritage and a unique position, but it too may disappear without new products and progressive thinking. This is a serious challenge. I'm currently a co-owner of the company and I think change is more easily accepted now. I am in the process of researching innovations in the use of wood and natural materials, I'm working on developing new aesthetic principles companies.

Dixon is also the head of the foundation Bombay Sapphire, a regular sponsor of innovative design ideas and organizer of the BOMBAY SAPPHIRE DESIGNER GLASS COMPETITION. With the support of the foundation, one of Dixon's latest works was created - the Bombay Sapphire Stretch sofa - the longest sofa in the world, the length of which is 45 m. The sofa was exhibited at Milan airport during the days when the famous furniture exhibition i Saloni Milano was held in Milan.

When I work as a designer, it's about the things I'm really interested in - engineering, marketing, not just the actual design process. I think effective designers are interested in the whole chain. Robin Day, Verner Panton - such people truly intend to change the world through design. This is a very humble approach. Designers are now too concerned with the shape of an object and the evolution within the form. I think that good designer it is the one who manages to bring all the elements together - an understanding of materials and a belief in improving functionality - then, as a result of experimentation, the final form can be arrived at. I'm rarely a designer. As a rule, I remain on the periphery, the popularity of my products stems from an interest in materials and technology.

I believe that I am just getting on my feet as a designer, I want to create many more things that I have not done before: buildings and motorcycles, books and landscape projects, food and discos….

Famous English brand Tom Dixon was founded in 2002 by the equally famous British designer and architect Tom Dixon. Tom Dixon was born in 1959 in Sfax (Tunisia) and at the age of 4 he moved to England with his parents. Not yet thinking about a career in design, Tom studied at art school in Chelsea until he had an accident, due to which he had to spend 3 months in hospital. Having recovered, Tom quit his studies and became interested in music, becoming a bass guitarist in one of the bands. Soon, a new accident in which Tom breaks his arm closes his path to a career as a professional musician, and he devotes himself entirely to working on creating his metal objects. In 1985, Tom Dixon opened his workshop Creative Salvage, which in 1994 changed its name to Space. The workshop is engaged in the creation of furniture and lamps, producing items in a single copy or limited edition. Dixon begins to show his products in galleries in London, Paris, and in 1989 he enters the exhibition stage in Milan.
Soon Tom's sculptural works attracted the attention of amateurs and professionals, among whom was Giulio Cappellini. The meeting with Cappellini opened the way for Dixon to the world of professional design. In 1989, Cappellini began producing the S chair, which in the same year joined the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the '90s, Dixon's work became less craft-oriented and more sculptural in form, with the designer's interest drawn to plastics. In 1994, Dixon founded EUROLOUNGE to produce his own products. And the first product released by the company that had enormous success was the Jack Light, which received the Millennium Mark award in 1997 and soon joined the exhibitions of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. In 1998, Tom Dixon headed the Habitat design studio, and in 2001 he was appointed its art director.
In parallel with his work in other studios, Tom Dixon founded his own brand in Portobello in 2002, producing furniture and lighting, which this moment sold in 65 countries around the world. In 2004, he was appointed art director of Artek, being also a co-owner of this large Finnish furniture manufacturer, founded by Alvar Aalto back in 1934. In 2007, Tom opened a design studio, Design Research Studio, which deals with interiors and various architectural projects. Among the completed works, it is worth noting the Royal Academy of Arts and Jamie Oliver restaurants in London, Sea Containers House and Shoreditch House. Dixon was awarded an OBE in 2001 and received the Best Retail Design award in 2007.