George Sowden

George James Sowden (born 1942 in Leeds, UK) is a designer and product developer.

Career

He studied architecture at Gloucestershire College of Art in the 1960s. In 1970, he moved to Milan, where he started working with Ettore Sottsass and Olivetti. In parallel to the industrial design work on early Olivetti computers.,^[3] he was involved during the 1970s in experimental "radical" design projects which enabled him to become, in 1981, one of the co-founders^[4] of the Memphis Group, the design movement that had a significant impact on design in the eighties.

In the same year, 1981, he founded his design studio, SowdenDesign, collaborating with companies such as Olivetti, Alessi, Bodum, Guzzini, Lorenz, Rancilio, Steelcase, Swatch, Segis, Memphis, IPM, Moulinex, Telecom Italia, Tefal and Pyrex.

In 1991, Sowden received the Compasso d'Oro Award for design excellence for Olivetti, Fax OFX420.^[5][6]

Works by Sowden are held by museums such as the Metropolitan Museum and Brooklyn Museum in New York, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Notable works

In 2010, Sowden developed the SoftBrew coffee brewing device, which is distributed and sold throughout the world,^[11] notably in collaboration with the Danish design company HAY.^[12]

References

• Baacke, R.-P., Brandes, U. & Erlhoff, M., Design als Gegenstand: der neue Glanz der Dinge (Frölich & Kaufmann, Berlin, 1983) ISBN 3-88725-008-7
• Barbara Radice, Memphis: research, experiences, results, failures, and successes of new design (Rizzoli, New York, 1984) ISBN 0-8478-0569-7
• Silvia Katz, Classic plastics: from bakelite to high-tech : with a collector's guide. (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984) ISBN 0-500-01347-0
• Andrea Branzi, The hot house: Italian new wave design (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984) ISBN 0-500-27348-0
• Penny Sparke, Design in Italy: 1870 to the present (Abbeville Press, New York, 1988) ISBN 0-89659-884-5
• M. Collins, A. Papadakēs, Post-modern design (Rizzoli, New York, 1989) ISBN 0-8478-1136-0
• British Design & Art Direction in collaboration with RotoVision, The product book (Crans-près-Céligny, Switzerland, 1999) ISBN 2-88046-394-7
• Fiell, C., Fiell, P., Haag, C., & Safavi, P., Designing the 21st century. (Taschen, Koln, 2001) ISBN 3-8228-5883-8
• Peter Zec, Who's who in design. Vol. 2. (AVedition, Stuttgart, 2003) ISBN 3-89986-002-0
• Terence Conran, Max Fraser, Designers on design (Conran Octopus, London, 2004) ISBN 1-84091-400-9
• Fiell, Charlotte, and Peter Fiell., 1000 Lights. Vol. 2 (Taschen, Koln, 2005) ISBN 3-8228-2475-5

External links

• Sowden SoftBrew official site
• Biography from 'Art and Culture' Archived 4 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine
• Biography on 'Ketterer Kunst Gallery'
• Design samples on 'Artnet'

• v
• t
• e

Olivetti

Key people

Executives	Camillo Olivetti (founder and president, 1908–1938) Adriano Olivetti (president, 1938–1960) Franco Tatò (head of various divisions, 1956–1990)
Designers and engineers	Franco Albini Getulio Alviani Gae Aulenti Mario Bellini Natale Capellaro Gianni Colombo Carlo De Benedetti Michele De Lucchi Egon Eiermann Ignazio Gardella Franca Helg James Irvine Louis Kahn Bruno Munari Costantino Nivola Marcello Nizzoli Pier Giorgio Perotto Giovanni Pintori Carlo Scarpa Piero Scaruffi Ettore Sottsass George Sowden Grazia Varisco Lella Vignelli Massimo Vignelli Marco Zanuso

Computers

Mainframes	Elea series (1957–1964)
Personal computers	P6040 (1975) P6060 (1975) P6066 (1975) M20 (1982) M24 (1983) Prodest PC128 (1985) M28 (1986) M19 (1986) Envision (1995)
Laptops	M10 (1983) Quaderno (1992)
Calculators	Programma 101 (1965) Divisumma 18 (1972)

Typewriters

• Lettera 22 (1949)
• Valentine (1969)

Locations

• 500 Park Avenue
• Olivetti-Underwood Factory

Acquisitions

• Telecom Italia (acquired Olivetti)
• Triumph-Adler
• Omnidata

Commons category