Super normal on purpose: the method of Jasper Morrison

Some designers want to be noticed; this one has spent forty years trying not to be. Jasper Morrison, London-born in 1959, graduated from Kingston Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art and opened his London Office for Design in 1986 with a single aim: objects that fit into everyday surroundings without asking for attention. He gave the idea a name in 2006, when he and Naoto Fukasawa staged Super Normal in Japan, and he has kept writing it down since, in books published with Lars Müller such as A World Without Words, The Good Life and A Book of Things. The pieces that carry the argument are modest by design: the Air Chair, the Rotary Tray and the Hal chair, the Glo-ball lamps, a set of cutlery, a family of glasses, produced by houses such as Magis, Vitra, Flos and Alessi. Royal Designer for Industry, Compasso d'Oro, CBE: the honours came anyway.

Indian architects reach the same discipline through La Mercanti and Emeco, the American house that has produced six of his collections: Alfi, 1 Inch and Utility among them, solid and quiet.