The Hide Large Aluminum Pendant

"Thomas Bernstrand’s objects are not meant to be placed on a pedestal; they are meant to be used,” remarked Mark Isitt, an architecture and design journalist. He does not mean this in the customary manner. “Not as one usually uses furniture and lamps and flowerpots and coat hangers and notice boards and towel hangers and ladders and everything else he has designed. But more… intensively… You should be able to swing from Thomas’ things. Dance on them. Dismantle them.” That’s quite a statement, and if you are doubting Bernstrand has a playful enough personality to pull it off, consider that the fixtures Global Lighting distributes in the North American marketplace—produced by Swedish manufacturer Zero Interior Lighting—are named Hide and Poker!

That said, creativity is more than a game to the award-winning industrial designer, who founded his eponymous studio Bernstrand & Company. Good Design awards, Red Dot awards, IMM Interior Innovations awards, and Light of the Year awards are but a few of the accolades he’s been handed. Bernstrand studied at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) in Stockholm and Danmarks Designskole, and has exhibited at Colette in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. “I tend to think that Thomas would have been an excellent actor,” Isitt proclaims. This may be true, but the design world is definitely the better for the fact he chose this career path instead! Wouldn't you agree?