Internationally acclaimed designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby founded studio BarberOsgerby in 1996 after graduating with Master’s Degrees in Architecture from The Royal College of Art in London. Much of Barber and Osgerby’s early work involved the folding and shaping of sheet material, and model making remains an integral part of their design practice, informing everything they produce. Their designs, ranging from furniture to architecture, are as varied as the straightforward Magis Umbrella Stand and the beautifully functional London 2012 Olympic Torch.
Barber and Osgerby’s work, included in collections for Vitra, B&B Italia, Venini, Cappellini, Magis, Swarovski, Flos, and Established & Sons, is also held in permanent collections around the world, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the V&A Museum and the Design Museum in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 2001, Barber and Osgerby founded Universal Design Studio, recognized today as one of the world’s most innovative creative design consultancies, working in architecture, interiors, and exhibition design. In 2012, the duo launched MAP, a strategy-based industrial design studio that draws on the creative and commercial skills of BarberOsgerby to provide design intuition, creative direction, and research to their ambitious clients.