Introduction Tom Dixon

In 1994, British designer Tom Dixon conceived a revolutionary multi-functional object that he called “Black Jack”. If you take a look to this object, you will see that it is similar to the traditional playground game for children known as “Jacks” or “Jackstones”. Do you remember the traditional metal jacks bearing six tips at right angles to one another, four of which are usually rounded and two that are more pointed? If not, we invite you to take a look to the video published in this blog and then compare the game originated in Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt with Tom Dixon´s “Black Jack”.


Tom Dixon is one of the most influential designers and has been considered as a “star designer, famous for his innovative designs”. Born in 1959 in Sfax, Tunisia, Tom moved to the United Kingdom when he was four. He studied at the Chelsea School of Art and Design (http://www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/), the leading British art and design institution which offers courses in art, graphic design, textile design, among others up to PhD level, and that is directed by Professor David Garcia a pioneer in media arts in the Netherlands. Dixon studied until 1978 and began his career as a designer in 1983 with on-stage performances at a nightclub in London in which he welded metal “objets trouvés” into seat furniture. From this collection, we can find Tom Dixon´s “Kitchen Chair”, made of frying pans, ladles, and steel. In 1988, Tom designed the “S Chair”, that was manufactured in 1992 by Capellini. In 1988 he established a factory of his own, Dixon PID Space, which made early Dixon´s furniture and lamps, as one- offs or in limited editions.

In the 1990s, his designs were produced by the Italian design firm, Cappelllini. The Kitchen Chair, the Bird Chaise lounge or the Bird 2 chair, or even the Pulon - a chair that looks like a sculpture-, made Tom famous. If you go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, you will find the first Cappellini- Tom Dixon S- Chair.

Tom is recognized as a designer with no formal art or design education. He began once to explore the decorative and structural strength of recycled materials, that some time later helped him to manufacture a wide variety of products, from biodegradable bamboo fiber to the black “Jack Black” plastic design. Tom created in his workshop different objects, they turned out to be recognizable and ordered as Cappellini states. His workshop “Space” became a design office in 1991 and, from 1994, it is a space to show creations of younger designers. In 1994, his interest moved to plastics, opening “Eurolongue”, and then he moved to extrusion technique. Eurolounge has produced several lamps made from polypropylene, including “Star”, “Octo” and “Jack” designs. “Jacks” were firstly conceived as a sitting stacking and ligthing object made out from plastic and used in the process of rotary moulding.

In 1998 he became head of design at the British furniture store Habitat and in 2002 he founded “Tom Dixon. The Company”. Tom Dixon works as a product designer and interior decorator both for his own firms and for other companies including Asplund, Cappellini, De Vecchi, Moroso, and even fashion designers as Ralph Lauren or Jean Paul Gautlier. His work is part of the collection of important museums such as the Design Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou, the MOMA, the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others. He has also taught in the Royal College of Art, in Kingston Polythechnic and Plymouth University.

He says that not studying design was an advantage to experiment with no constraints and develop a new attitude. He has travelled, “to the beautiful world of manufacturing such as Vietnam, Portugal, Brazil or Thailand” and nowadays more than 85% of his designs are made out from biodegradable material. Tom Dixon Ltd. is the firm he manages and this means that not longer Tom Dixon is a person but also a brand.

If you want to buy one of his designs, you can pay 1700 euros for your Cappellini S- Chair and in 1-2 weeks you will have it... http://www.unicahome.com/p18036/cappellini/cappellini-s-chair-by-tom-dixon.html

If you wish to visit him, you can go to Tom Dixon Shop in Wharf Building, Portobello Dock. You stop in Ladbroke Grove station, turn left when exiting the station and walk for 10 minutes until you reach the bridge over the canal. The entrance is on the bridge over the Grand Union Canal.