Every once in a while you come across someone with true vision. Mark Newson is someone in that category. He has so much vision that there is no limit to the types of things that he can design, so much so that there's no real way to classify him. He had done home interiors and building interiors and exteriors; created furniture and wall treatments; designed buildings and structures; designed watches, silverware, and statues; and even designed a plane!
Newson was born in Sydney Australia in 1963, and was blessed with the opportunity to travel with his family throughout his childhood. He showed an aptitude for design heading into college, and after graduating from Sydney College of the Arts in 1984 was awarded was awarded a grant from the Australian Crafts Council. In 1986 he had his first solo museum exhibition, and after moving to Tokyo in 1987 created some of his most eclectic designs in furniture over the next four years. During that period he had more museum showings of his designs in Tokyo and Switzerland.
In 1991 he relocated to Paris where he was not only commissioned to design more furniture, but also started designing a number of different restaurants in major cities across the world such as London, Cologne, and New York City. He also continued winning more design awards, including the Prix du créateur de l’année du salon du meuble (Creator of the Year Furniture Fair) in Paris.
In 1997 he moved to London and open up his studio, Marc Newson LTD, and has lived in London ever since. He decided to take on both larger and more exotic projects, and started creating things such as bicycles, bathroom accessories, a car, and airplane interiors. In 1998 he won the Top 50 Designers Award from I.D. Magazines, and in 1999 he won multiple awards including the Red Dot Design Award for product design in Germany for creating the Embryo chair. He won the Red Dot Design Award again in 2004 creating the Hemipod Watch.
One could say that by 2004 the sky was the limit for Newson, as Qantas Airlines asked him to design the interior of a new fleet of airplanes as well as airport lounges in Sydney and Melbourne. And, since we were with the one pun, we might as well also add that his designs are out of this world, as he is also created the design for the interior of the space airplane that EADS Astrium, a division of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, hopes to fly passengers back and forth into space by 2012.
He also designed the uniforms that were worn by the Australian national team in the 2004 Olympics. By 2005, his fame and grown so much that he was named as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine, and he bested that in 2008 by winning the man of the year award for design by GQ of Germany. In 2010 he was awarded a doctorate in visual arts from the University of Sydney.
Newson has done a lot over the last 25 years, and it only 47 years of age has so much more to accomplish.