Kenneth Grange is one of Britains's most prolific and important industrial designers. Born in 1929 in London, he studied commercial art at Willesden College of Art and worked as a drafting assistant for modernist architectural practice Arcon before setting up as a designer in his own right.
The many and varied products that he has designed in a career spanning more than six decades include the UK's first parking meters, Wilkinson Sword razors, Kenwood food mixers, Morphy Richards irons, Kodak cameras, Parker pens and Ronson cigarette lighters. He also developed the aerodynamic profile and interior layout of the Intercity 125 and worked on the 1997 reworking of the classic London taxi cab. He was a founding partner of legendary interdisciplinary design company Pentagram.
As a pioneer of user-centred design, Grange says of his work: "I like finding solutions to things. The best jobs are where you run up against one problem after another. I'm never daunted. Sooner or later, I know I'm going to resolve how to make the bloody thing."
Grange has won ten Design Council Awards, has twice been awarded the Prince Philip Designers Prize and has been named a Royal Designer for Industry. He was the first designer to be given a solo show at the V&A in 1983 and the Design Museum London mounted a major retrospective of his work in 2011. He was knighted in 2013.
Grange retired from Pentagram in 1997 and has since worked on a range of independent projects while serving as a design director at Anglepoise.
He is among the select group of designers invited to contribute to twentytwentyone's celebration of the centenary of Robin Day's birth and his tribute to Day's enduring classic, the reclining chair, will be available exclusively from twentytwentyone.