How does an ex-corporate high-flyer wind up with a larrikin Australian designer?
January 16th, 2009
Ian Wiseman was fed up with the corporate world, “I’d had enough of all talk and no action,” he says. “Companies should never lose focus on what they do – too many times organisations spend time running round in circles not making decisions rather than making things happen.”
So he set out on his own path as a supplier of quality lighting products, with a design orientation. On his travels he met up with Australian designer Dean Phillips.
Phillips is a designer who shares Wiseman’s view and believes strongly in Australian design’s ability to compete with European manufacturers and the two quickly struck up a friendship.
“It was always my intention to align myself with a quality local brand and when I was introduced to Dean Phillips, it made the whole plan fit together,” Wiseman says.
Melbourne-based Phillips has his own eponymous brand as well as a new architectural lighting brand called Darkon, both distributed in NSW through Wiseman’s LightCulture.
“Dean is a brilliant designer and using the creativity of the Dean Phillips range the influence he is having on the Darkon brand is exciting to say the least.”
Phillips’ mix of classic and contemporary lighting puts a uniquely Australian twist on European trends. The designer’s craftsman-like techniques – including gold leaf gilding and porcelain – paired with his knowledge of the latest in LED technology are putting him ahead of the pack.
“He has worked with it [LED] now for so long in his decorative range that he understands it, knows the pitfalls and is designing with it rather than just making LED fit – for a local company to do that is very exciting,” Wiseman says.
Dean Phillips and Darkon are available in NSW through LightCulture
lightculture.com.au
deanphillips.com
darkon.com.au
’Mini Joi’
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Schneider Electric’s new range are making bulky outlets a thing of the past with the new UNICA X collection.
It’s widely accepted that nature – the original, most accomplished design blueprint – cannot be improved upon. But the exclusive Crypton Leather range proves that it can undoubtedly be enhanced, augmented and extended, signalling a new era of limitless organic materiality.
Gaggenau’s understated appliance fuses a carefully calibrated aesthetic of deliberate subtraction with an intuitive dynamism of culinary fluidity, unveiling a delightfully unrestricted spectrum of high-performing creativity.
How can design empower the individual in a workplace transforming from a place to an activity? Here, Design Director Joel Sampson reveals how prioritising human needs – including agency, privacy, pause and connection – and leveraging responsive spatial solutions like the Herman Miller Bay Work Pod is key to crafting engaging and radically inclusive hybrid environments.
Richard Simpson’s timber creation for Treólogy has impressed the judges at New Zealand’s Best Design Awards
The new ABC store in Bondi Junction breathes fresh new energy into this age-old Australian brand.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
A longstanding partnership turns a historic city into a hub for emerging talent
The Hub, Australia’s largest private workspace operator, has 16 locations across the country. Their newest site – designed by Architectus and Hassell – puts Perth’s unique context front and centre.