THE BIRTH OF ScandInavIan dESIgn claSSIcS FROm

Scandinavian Design Classics from
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Scandinavian Design Classics from
1963
THE BIRTH OF
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Position AB
PHOTOS: Rolf Andersson, Bild-bolaget, Jeffrey Nishinaka on page 21.
PRINTING: Ineko AB, Sweden
COVER: Invercote Creato 240 g/m2, insert: Invercote Creato 200 g/m2
© Iggesund Paperboard 2013
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The elegant Ball Chair was created by Finnish
­designer Eero Aarnio in 1963. It can swivel
360 degrees so it can easily serve as a ­major
focal point in a room while still creating a
protective private space. This design classic’s
futuristic appearance made it a natural choice
to ­appear in such feature films as the James
Bond ­Thunderball, Men in Black and Dazed and
­Confused as well as the British 1960s television
series The Prisoner.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The clear influences of Italian design on the Swedish
Volvo P1800 sports car are partly because its designer, Pelle
­Petterson, was employed at the time by the Italian design
agency Frua in Turin. Petterson later made a name for himself
as a successful sailor and sailboat designer.
The popularity of the car grew when it became closely
­associated with the lead character in the television series The
Saint based on the novels by Leslie Charteris. The star, Roger
Moore, drove a white Volvo P1800 throughout the series. Much
later, when The Saint became a feature film, the new lead, Val
Kilmer, also drove a Volvo, a C70 Coupé.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The creative output of Swedish designer
Stig Lindberg ranged from ceramic
feature walls in the Al Rashid Hotel in
Baghdad to the design of televisions
and illustrations for children’s books.
Lindberg was best known as the artistic
director of the Swedish porcelain factory
Gustavsberg. There he was ­responsible
for many successful dinnerware
­services, which were extremely popular
in Swedish homes.
His Berså series was made in large
quantities in the early 1960s and has
become a highly valued design classic.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Storebro is a small inland locality in southern Sweden where
many refugees from Estonia and Latvia settled before and
during World War II. Most of them got jobs at the biggest
local company, Storebro, which did metal working. When
owner Ivar Gustafsson discovered that many of his new
employees had brought boatbuilding skills with them from
their home countries, he began producing wooden boats on
a large scale. One of the first successful models was called
Solö. The production expanded and in time came to include
considerably larger and more luxurious boats.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
BRIO is known worldwide for its wooden toys. Founded in 1884 in the southern Swedish
province of Skåne, the company originally made baskets but soon began focusing more and
more on toys. BRIO toys are designed to be learning tools and are easily recognised by their
distinctive shapes and colour scheme. BRIO is best known for its toy trains and tracks, all
made of wood.
Today the toys are made in China but are still developed and designed in Sweden. BRIO
still has a toy museum in Osby, Skåne.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The driving force
behind the success of the
Finnish textile company Marimekko
was its head designer, Maija Isola,
who created more than 500 innovative
textile patterns during her career with the
company. Her style has been described
as ranging from minimalist geometric to
subdued naturalistic to explosions of colour.
However one chooses to describe it, her style
was the key to Marimekko’s global advances
during the 1960s. The Kaivo pattern shown
here was created by Isola together with
her daughter Kristina, who also
worked as a designer for
the company.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
CH07 is the uninspiring name of this chair by Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner. In the course of his career he created more than
500 chairs, all based on the conviction that a chair should not only be functional but also aesthetic. The CH07 premiered in a small edition
in 1963 and was then forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s and put back into production to great international success.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The Plug Inn wall clock was not designed by a Scandinavian but by a Dutchman, Frits Vink,
who created many exciting clocks. However, its clean lines and restrained elegance made the clock a favourite with the Scandinavian public
and it was a bestseller in the early 1960s. Vink worked for NASA on designs for the space industry before launching
his own business focusing on consumer products.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Even before World War II designer Ralph Lysell
was working to create a one-piece phone for
the Swedish telephone company Ericsson. That
­development work was suspended during the war
but was resumed by Lysell’s designer colleague
Gösta Thames. The final result was the Ericofon,
later better known as the Cobra. The inventors, both
with an engineering background, could hardly have
imagined that a few decades later their creation
would feature in design museums around the world
and constantly appreciate in price.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Viktor Hasselblad was a photography enthusiast who transformed the family firm into one of the world’s leading camera manufacturers.
He began making cameras in the 1940s, when the Swedish air force asked him if he could build a reconnaissance camera like those in German airplanes.
“No, but I can build a better one,” he replied, and did just that within a year. A few years later he unveiled the world’s first medium format, single-lens mirror reflex camera
with interchangeable lenses, film magazines and viewfinders. The American Apollo space programme selected the camera to document the journeys to the Moon
and twelve Hasselblad cameras still remain there today.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
This compact record player with a built-in speaker in the lid was a status symbol among Swedish teenagers in the 1960s,
long before ghetto blasters and Walkmans. The functional design was created by engineers at Luxor’s design department. The Luxor brand,
which dominated Scandinavian consumer electronics in the 1960s, was inspired by something so far away as the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.
The tomb was a recent discovery when the company’s founder was searching for a brand name with international flair
so the company was named after the city closest to the tomb.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Hekla is one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes, located 110 k­ ilometres
east of Reykjavik and rising to a height of 1,491 metres. But it is also
the name of a lamp created by Petur B Luthersson and Jon Olafsson
in the first revolutionary design years of the 1960s. The prototype
was made of paperboard but the lamp was later produced in other
materials. Only 15,000 Hekla lamps were made and they are now in
great demand as vintage collectables. A relaunch of the lamp is being
considered.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Verner Panton was a true follower of the Danish
­furniture tradition, with mentors such as Poul
­Henningsen and Arne Jacobsen. Despite his Danish
origins and his inclusion among the great figures of
the Danish design tradition, Panton worked primarily
in Switzerland. His creations include everything from
architecture to textiles. His Geometry 1 pattern series
was released in 1960 as a textile pattern but also
­appears on a range of eye-catching mugs.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
The Spotnicks were Sweden’s first big popular music export. This instrumental rock group got a real boost when its members
adopted the space age optimism of the 1960s and began performing in ‘space suits’. The suits were a hit with the public but made
their wearers perspire heavily on stage. The band was high on the charts for a number of years in the UK, Germany and Japan
as well as Sweden. The group’s second album, The Spotnicks in Paris, was released in 1963.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Norway’s Tias Eckhoff is represented
in a number of museums in Europe
and the United States. He began
his career as a ceramic artist and
designed a number of dinnerware
services but is best known for his
cutlery. As early as 1952 he created
the Cypress flatware service for the
Danish design firm Georg Jensen.
At the beginning of the 1960s he
designed Maya for the Danish firm
Stelton. With its rounded edges,
this elegant cutlery fits snugly in
the hand and has won numerous
awards, including the Norwegian
Design Award and the Classic Award
for Design Excellence from the
­Norwegian Design Council.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
Clothes and shoes for liberated women – that was
the guiding principle of Katja Geiger, founder of the
brand Katja of Sweden. She advocated a simplicity
that was closer to the American tradition of ­everyday
wear than to the French haute couture focus on
­festive occasions. Her signature style was formfitting, comfortable clothing in bright colours, often
­inspired by woven textiles from Sweden’s ­traditional
peasant culture. In the mid-1960s she also began
showing her designs in Paris to great success.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
From its home base in a remote forested region of Sweden, the accordion firm of Hagström
dominated the Nordic market for the instruments in the 1940s and ’50s. In 1952 the founder,
Albin Hagström, died. To learn the music industry, his son and heir Karl-Erik was sent to the
United States in the mid-1950s. To pay for the trip, he had with him a small stock of
accordions to sell. After a few months he returned with the bitter news that it was
impossible to sell accordions because everyone over there wanted electric guitars.
The company immediately began making guitars. In time it was so successful that
the artists who used its guitars included Elvis Presley, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix,
The Eagles, David Bowie and ABBA.
SCANDINAVIAN DESIGN CLASSICS FROM
1963
THE BIRTH OF
INVERCOTE YOUR DESIGN
Since 1963 – for fifty years – Iggesund Paperboard has been making
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designers who work with demanding applications in
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Invercote is a design product with its roots in one of the golden ages
of design – the early 1960s. While its white, flat appearance might
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when Invercote is combined with the fantastic creativity shown by our
customers the final results can more than hold their own
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We thank all of you who are using Invercote
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