Fiona Raby studied architecture at the Royal College of Art London and Anthony Dunne industrial design. These London designers are using design as a media for discussion and debate amongst designers, industrials and the public around social, cultural and ethical implications posed by emerging technologies. Their projects have been exhibited and published internationally and are part of the permanent collection of many museums including the MOMA in New York, the Victoria Albert Museum in London and the FRAC centre in Orléans. They exhibited at the Science Museum of London and at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Dunne & Raby have notably worked with major companies: Sony, National Panasonic, France Telecom. They have published two books: Black Design (Princeton Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (The MIT Press).

Design historian, and editor in chief of the design and research magazine Azimuts since 2004 conceived with Post-Graduate students of the Saint Étienne higher school of art and design and published by the Cité du design. She also participates in various collective pieces of work and journals, including the magazine Numéro. Since 2010, she is also a lecturer on design culture at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris.

Konstantin Grcic is a German designer, who studied design at Royal College of Art in London from 1988 to 1990. After his studies, he joined the studio of Jasper Morrison in 1991 and then set up his own organization in Munich: Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design (KGID). He works for publishers like littala, Magis, Moroso, Flos, as well as industries such as Krups, Whirlpool, etc.

Benjamin Loyauté was the youngest journalist specialized in design (magazine Connaissance des Arts) before becoming independent and working with Architectural Digest, l’Oeil, Citizen K, Elle Deco, Nuke, etc. He is the author of Pierre Cardin evolution, and the Old is back in 2008. He was in 2007, co-curator of the exhibition Design against Design au Grand Palais, in charge of the contemporary research and a part of the catalogue. Founder of the agency Loya-b in 2006, he produced and co-wrote the film Designers’ universe, a private visit in their own world first documentary film that explores new uses of contemporary design. He recently participated in the exhibition Madeleine Vionnet, Purist of the Mode at the Museum of decorative Arts in Paris and wrote an essay on his collection of modernist design. In 2010, he co-authored the exhibition Poem Island for the brand Montblanc and is already preparing the very first French Design Awards.

Sébastien Sans
Mai 2010

Felipe Ribon is a graduate of the ENSCI / Les Ateliers (National school of industrial creation) of Paris in 2008. His work revolves around the concept of hygiene and questions our obsessional behaviours linked to the immoderate cleanliness. In 2008 his project Une autre salle de bain; materializes the equation between design, hygiene and environment by offering basins made of nano-technical textiles and low-speed mobile taps. In 2009, this project earned him the Audience Award at the Design Parade in Hyères (France), the Best of the Best award during the German contest Red Dot design award in Singapore and the Grand Prize of Design from the city of Paris.

After an education in history and art history, Claire Fayolle was the curator of the exhibition Vivre Plastique in 1991 (Caravelles 2). The following year, she was in charge of the objects’ selection for the last exceptional exhibition dedicated to design in Paris, Design : miroir du siècle (Grand Palais, 1993). Journalist, she writes mainly in the specialized press. In 2002, sho co-produces the show « Question d’Objets » on France Culture radio. Since 2005, she has been responsible for a section in the Beaux Arts magazine. She regularly participates in Décryptage Milan in the professionnal letter Design Fax. She has collaborated in many publications and is also the author of many books including C’est quoi le design ? (éd. Autrement). In addition to her press and edition activities, she teaches at the Saint Étienne higher school of art and design.

Emmanuel Tibloux is the director of the Saint Étienne higher school of art and design. Graduated from the École Normale Supérieure, he was, among other things, the director of the French Institute of Bilbao and director of the regional school of fine arts of Valencia. In 2009 he was elected president of the Andéa (National Association of art schools’ Directors).

Michel Philippon was born in 1950. He studied theatre and dance in the 1970s with alternative groups of artists. In 1989, Philippon became an architect. He created mpproduction and worked on many studies and public spaces, including about fifty squares and streets in Geneva and the Vaud canton.

As an artist, he showed his works at the MAMCO (Geneva), Magasin (Grenoble), Bâtiment d'Art Contemporain (Geneva, running in 2011). He has been a stage designer in many exhibitions in Switzerland and France, and has also taught space design and interaction design at the Saint Étienne Higher School of art and design (ESAD) since 2005.

Michel Philippon also was the curator and stage designer of an interactive and participative exhibition involving about ten French and European schools, L'Appartement géant, at the Saint-Étienne International Design Biennial in 2008. For the 2010 Biennial, he has worked on L'Entreprise with Emmanuel Tibloux, the ESAD Director.

The association Collectif Designers+ founded during early 2007 in Saint Étienne, has approximately fifty members and brings together designers with multiple and complementary skills and professionals also involved in the innovation process by design. Supported by local communities, it aims to enhance and materialize the added value of design dedicated to the development of companies, shops and communities.

François Bauchet is a designer of furniture, objects and tableware, scenic artist and interior architect as well as teacher at the Saint Étienne higher school of art and design. He was elected creator of 2002 at the Salon du Meuble in Paris. In 2000, the Museum of Decorative Arts organized a personal exhibition around his work. Since 1999, he works with the agency and gallery Kreo where he regularly makes new collections. From 1984 to 1998, he collaborated with the gallery Neotu where he regularly presented new collections. His furniture and objects are currently edited by the companies: Kreo, Cinna, Ligne Roset, Ercuis and Haviland.

Benjamin Graindorge is graduated from the ENSCI / Les Ateliers (National school of industrial creation) in Paris since 2006. Assistant of successively Mathieu Lehanneur and Radi Designers, he collaborated among others with Domo and Perez, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Moulinex. He participated in the 2007 Nuits Blanches.