Okay Studio is a collective of individual designers sharing a bit more then a workspace. Each has broken their own ground, with some working for leading international design studios while others involved in consultancy projects, but they share the drive to generate dynamic, though-provoking design - ranging from solutions for hoarders to transformable furniture for the morning panic when you can't find your stuff.
Originating from different countries, and brought together through their studies at the Royal College of Art Design Products course in London, the group have continued working alongside each other, sharing resources and sometimes collaborating. Consisting of Shay Alkalay, Tomas Alonso, Mathias Hahn, Peter Marigold, Oscar Narud, Hiroko Shiratori and Jorre van Ast, their work is pretty varied (as you might expect...) but underlying it all is a simple, pragmatic approach that manifests itself in products that make you wonder why you didn't think of them first.
Interested? Well, soon there's an opportunity to see the gang's work in the flesh. As part of London Design Festival 2008, Okay Studio have been invited by the Aram Gallery to present their first ever curated show, running from the 18th September until 8th November. This will be the first curated exhibition for the group as a whole and will be entitled 'Under The Same Roof' - presenting a unique insight into the way this group has set up their way of working in London. The exhibition will transform the Aram Gallery into a series of ‘rooms’ that will represent the working spaces of each of the members of the studio, reflecting on how they operate successfully as colleagues rather than as a branded consultancy. Collectively, the exhibition will explore how many different approaches to life and a creative existence are possible under the same roof offering insight into the ambient ongoing process of being a designer in London today. The ‘roof’, or ceiling, of the gallery will be a unique installation of drawings, sketch models, workshop jigs, failed projects and other studio ephemera that form each of the members daily studio existence.
