Jury Alumni

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  Steven Harrington

  Co-Founder, National Forest

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Steven Harrington is a Los Angeles–based designer and cofounder of design firm, National Forest. Steven is best known for his bright, iconic work that encourages a two-way conversation between the artist and viewer. Embracing a multimedia approach, Harrington’s portfolio includes large-scale installations, limited-edition books, product designs, graphic design, illustration, fine art and sculptures. Alongside his commercial work, Harrington has exhibited artwork in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Tokyo, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Brussels, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Melbourne, and Dallas. Recent work examples include an installation at the MIMA Museum in Brussels, a product collection for Nike, A category launch
  for BAPE, and a permanent outdoor sculpture for Loft 1 Korea.
  
  Ongoing sample clients include: Apple, Google, Hypebeast, Moleskine, Nike, International Olympics Committee & Bape.

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  David Harvey

  Wine Importer, Raeburn Fine Wines

  2015 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  David Harvey is a wine importer with Raeburn Fine Wines, and a writer. He works with elite nature-centric wine producers of West Europe, and gets involved with closures, packaging, marketing, buying and sales. He contributes to The World of Fine Wine, the award winning publication, and has recently written an entry for The Oxford Companion to Wine (2015 edition).
  He judged at the IWC (International Wine Challenge), the world'd largest wine competition, from 2002-2004 as panel head and super-juror.
  In 2004, while working for Frank Cornelissen on Mt. Etna, he created the name 'orange wine' for the renaissance of white grapes processed like red grapes in the cellar, which has since stuck and become the international standard.
  His favourite objects include his black Parker 51s, prototypes of Paul Cocksedge's Bookmark and Ideas Tray, a Cannondale Killer V and Klein Attitude, a Herve Pennequin corkscrew by Le Thiers, a Santoku knife by Sakai Takayuki. Etc.
  David studied writing at Harvard Summer School, wine at the WSET, and photography at Filton College.

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  Patricio Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Patricio “Pato” Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light. Patricio is a Los Angeles-based art director and filmmaker whose work explores the intersection of photography, film, and text. Since graduating from Cornell University, Patricio has worked in collaboration with Farm League, MACRO, and Tortoise.

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  Inigo Hernandez-Ysasi

  Co-Founder, Casa Ysasi

  2023 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Iñigo Ysasi is a co-founder at Casa Ysasi; a Los Angeles-based creative studio with an emphasis on light.
  Iñigo self-taught designer constantly experimenting with new mediums from wood to neon all the way to concrete. He is driven by curiosity and the combination of nontraditional materials in new formats. He moved to LA back in 2016 to join a large technology company while simultaneously pursuing a creative profession in his free time. He worked for a furniture company before co-founding Casa Ysasi with his brother Patricio Ysasi in 2020.
  

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  Yuka Hiyoshi

  Designer, MillerKnoll

  2024 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Yuka is a Japanese industrial designer based in Michigan. She has over fifteen years of experience designing and consulting for companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She is lead designer at MillerKnoll’s Tailored Studio.

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  Ben Hughes

  Founder, A4

  2017 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Ben Hughes is a designer, educator and author who has worked for consultancies in UK, Australia and Taiwan. From 1999 to 2011 he was the Director of Postgraduate Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins. In 2011 he relocated to Beijing where was Professor of Industrial Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) until 2016. In 2019 he was appointed Director of the International Design Centre at Beijing Institute of Technology. He continues to run his own design studio, A4, in CaoChangDi, Beijing.

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  Signe Hytte

  Furniture & Product Designer, Signe Hytte

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Signe Hytte is a Copenhagen-based furniture and product designer. The essence of her work is simplicity, aiming to create honest and functional objects that improve everyday life. Her goal is the most challenging and rewarding aspect of designing: reducing a piece to its core.
  
  Apart from working with brands like New Works and Menu, she is Head of Design at the Danish furniture and lighting company & tradition. Her work is a regular fixture at the Stockholm, Milan and Cologne furniture fairs, and she has been featured in design and art exhibitions globally.
  
  She has studied Aesthetics and Culture at the University of Aarhus, and she graduated from the Design + Business school TEKO in 2012.

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  Josh Itiola

  Designer and Planner, Vitsoe

  2021 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

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  Randall Jones

  Interior Designer, Yabu Pushelberg

  2021 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Randall Jones is an interior designer at Yabu Pushelberg and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design. She is an alumna of Howard University and received her MFA in Interior Design from Parsons School of Design. She founded Obsidian, the black student design organization at Parsons in the Fall of 2018. She also serves on the Parsons Committee on Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice. Randall is committed to working to help expand the pipeline of students and professionals that are under-represented in the design industry. Currently, her work focuses in luxury hospitality, retail, and residential design. Prior to interior design, Randall spent 7 years working within the advertising and marketing space as an Art Director.

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  David Kennedy

  VP of Sales, Berndhart Design

  2020 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  David Kennedy is the Vice President of Sales at Bernhardt Design, the globally renowned design brand. A life-long design enthusiast, David is an experienced executive having spent over 20 years’ in luxury furniture sales, design and manufacturing. Prior to joining Bernhardt Design, David has held executive positions at Design Within Reach / Herman Miller, DEDON, Brown Jordan and Century Furniture. David is a former ASID national board member of and serves as a corporate advocate of Be Original Americas.

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  Danny Kuo

  Designer

  2017 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Danny Kuo is a Dutch designer currently based in Shanghai.
  As a designer he wants to address the issue of our changing reality as a result of technological progress. This is why flexibility and adaptability are the keywords with regard to both his work and his life. By creating effective products he wants to improve our lives and offer something we can enjoy.
  When Danny Kuo designs his objects, he is not only concerned about playful flexibility but also about enhanced usability.

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  Luca Nichetto

  Founder, Nichetto Studio

  2016 Furniture & Lighting Jury Captain

  Luca Nichetto was born in 1976 in Venice. He studied at the city’s Istituto statale d’arte, before undertaking a degree in industrial design at the Università Iuav di Venezia, from which he graduated in 1998. In 1999, Nichetto began his professional career with Murano-based glass maker Salviati, later becoming a product designer and consultant for lighting company Foscarini. In 2006, he founded his eponymous practice in Venice. In 2011 he moved to Stockholm, Sweden, to open a second studio and he continues to live in and work from this city. Over the course of his career, Nichetto has served as art director for many international design brands and he has developed an in-depth knowledge of the design industry.

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  Eny Lee Parker

  Founder, Eny Lee Parker

  2022 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Eny Lee Parker is a spatial designer based in New York, emphasizing in objects, furniture and lighting, using clay as her main medium. Parker reclaims the essence of making used in traditional craft from our past – the slowness, the intention, the respect for natural resources, creating contemporary objects that brings awareness to our presence as well as to non-living things.

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  Luke Pearson

  Founding Partner, PearsonLloyd

  2015 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Luke Pearson is an industrial designer and founding partner (with Tom Lloyd) of the London design studio PearsonLloyd. The studio works in environments that have demanding spatial, ergonomic and social needs, such as healthcare, aviation, workplace and cities. Recent projects include work for Joseph Joseph, Department of Health, Lufthansa, City of Bath, Intercontinental Hotels, Bene, and Poltrona Frau. The studio believes in the power of design to transform the way in which people use and experience public spaces and services, and to deliver products that are both efficient and beautiful. Luke was awarded the distinction of Royal Designer for Industry by The Royal Society of Arts in 2008, and in 2012 Luke and Tom were named in the top 50 designers 'Shaping the Future' by Fast-Co Magazine in New York. Luke trained in Industrial Design at Central St Martins, (BA Hons 1991) before completing a Master's Degree MA (RCA) in Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art in 1993. He worked with Ross Lovegrove in London before joining Tom to found PearsonLloyd in 1997.

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  Fernando Ramirez

  Co-founder and Designer, Common Object

  2024 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Fernando Ramirez is a designer dedicated to exploring the intersection of sustainability and community and how it drives value in design. Specializing in industrial design, furniture design, and environmental design, he has left his imprint on diverse projects, collaborating with both major corporations and innovative startups. His deep commitment to sustainability propels him beyond conventional boundaries, driving him to explore pathways that lead into the realm of regenerative thinking.
  
  As a co-founder of Common Object, a design studio aligned with his values for people and the planet, Fernando has forged a path guided by these principles. At the core of his studio's philosophy is a "planet- centered" design approach, empowering companies to take steps toward sustainability while fostering more inclusive connections with people. Their versatile portfolio spans industrial, furniture, medical, and interiors. A notable aspect of their work involves community projects, actively participating in co-design workshops specifically crafted to empower and uplift communities.
  
  Common Object's experience in sustainability has led to the studio's regenerative design experiment, Okaterra—a project that focuses on creating regional supply chains that collaborate with farmers to create materials for furniture. Since its release, Fernando and his design partner, Justin Beitzel, have seamlessly integrated workshops and talks into their studio flow. They are diligently working to share this thinking and posing the question, “Can the future of product design be regenerative?”

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  Kilian Schindler

  Founder, Bureau Kilian Schindler

  2019 Furniture & Lighting Jury Member

  Kilian Schindler studied product design in Germany and France. Werner Aisslinger, James Irvine, and Stefan Diez amongst others have overseen his projects. Since setting up his multi-disciplinary design bureau he has realized commissioned projects for internationally renowned companies in different fields: from product design to furniture as well as exhibition design.
  
  Since 2014 Kilian Schindler is doing the creative direction for TOLIX, France. His works have been recognized with coveted design awards, including German Design Award (gold), IF Product Design Award (gold) as well as the Red Dot Design Award. His designs were exhibited and published worldwide.
  
  Kilian Schindler has been teaching as visiting professor in the Product Design department at -Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung- (University of Arts and Design) in Karlsruhe, Germany.