With Formway Design Director - Mark Pennington: 7.30am Friday 27 July - TGA. As part of the Young Innvator Awards 2012 we welcome Mark Pennington to the Bay of Plenty.
Join us for an early morning session on the importance of design and innovation led business with Mark Pennington, Director of Formway Design and among many other things, designer of the ground breaking ‘Life Chair’.
When: 7.30am – 9am Friday 27 July
Where: Sharp Tudhope Lawyers, Level 4, 152 Devonport Road, Tauranga http://www.sharptudhope.co.nz/contact-us.aspx
Cost: None. Tea, coffee and muffins supplied
RSVP: To this email - numbers are restricted so act quickly
Supporters: Priority One, Enterprise Angels, Locus Research, Woods – The Creative Agency and ExportNZ BOP
Formway Design’s Life chair was launched in 2002 and it became the seat of choice for business people the world over including former US president Bill Clinton and the late Apple boss Steve Jobs. Over 150,000 Life chairs are sold each year in the US alone, made under licence by Formway Design's partner Knoll. Formway Design continue to develop award winning and commercially successful products for the international market. http://www.knoll.com/products/product.jsp?prod_id=188
Mark Pennington - BIO
Mark Pennington is one of New Zealand’s leading designers. His visionary design work has spanned a range of innovative products from radios for Philips to the ground breaking Life Chair for Formway. He has designed everything from furniture to playgrounds, to stereo systems, to the earthquake house at Te Papa. As well as the numerous product design awards Mark has under his belt, Mark received the prestigious DINZ John Britten Award in 2005 which recognises a person who has made an outstanding contribution to design in New Zealand. Mark is a director at Formway Design who continue to develop world-leading products sold around the world.
Between 1978 and 1990 Mark was Senior Lecturer and Head of Design at Wellington's School of Design. He attended Rhode Island School of Design as Associate Professor of Design and spent two years as a Guest Designer at the Concern Industrial Design Centre for Philips NV. in Holland. Mark has also worked for prestigious design consultancy Fitch Richardson Smith in the USA and Form Design Inc. in the Silicon Valley. Mark has consulted for Philips Electrical Industries, Atlantic Oil, Caltex New Zealand, New Zealand Ministry of Transport, and Citinet Corporation on a wide range of design issues including corporate identity and graphics programmes, calibration flight equipment and electrical design. Mark was also involved in the design of exhibition areas at New Zealand's National Museum, Te Papa.
Mark is passionate about innovation and its role in building great businesses. He believes designers must be strategic thinkers. As markets become more sophisticated, the need to understand market conditions and most importantly obtain and translate key insights of human behaviour into products and services is crucial to success.
Angela Wallace
Executive Officer
ExportNZ Bay of Plenty
07 5710600 021 636373
Smart Business Centre
65 Chapel Street, Bay Central, Tauranga 3110
With thanks to ExportNZ BOP foundation sponsor: Port of Tauranga
