Designers of the Year: Introducing Our Stellar Industrial Design Panel

The creative minds behind Umbra, Bocci and one of the top industrial design schools in the country join the team.

The countdown is on: just two weeks left to get your entries in front of this all-star panel of industrial design judges for our 2019 Designers of the Year, representing some of the most recognized brands in the country.

Matt Carr

Matt’s passion for design was first sparked when he interned at Douglas Cardinal Architects. He went on to study at Humber School of Industrial Design, where he received an “All-Canadian Academic” award for scholastic and varsity achievements. An integral part of the Umbra design team since 2001, Matt has contributed countless designs to their product line. His work has been featured multiple times in The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Surface Magazine, I.D Magazine, Met Home, Monocle and Living Etc. Matt is compelled to create product that balances business and imagination. Subtle details, an appreciation for imperfection, and the reinvention of traditional objects are distinguishing features of his designs.

As VP of Design, Matt oversees a global design department headquartered in Toronto.

Omer Arbel

Based between Vancouver and Berlin, Omer Arbel cultivates a fluid position between the fields of architecture, sculpture, invention and design. Focal themes of his work include investigation of intrinsic mechanical, physical, and chemical qualities of materials and exploration of light as a medium.

Omer Arbel Office is the creative hub of a constellation of companies—Bocci among them—structured to realize ideas of varying scale and across a wide spectrum of contexts and environments.

Shawn Sowers

Shawn has been living and working in Sweden for the past year and a half and is currently a Product Designer at IKEA.  He is an America- born designer from the Midwest, having received a BA in Studio Art from Indiana University and Master of Industrial Design from North Carolina State University.  He has worked in the past as a designer at IBM, Lenovo, and Bose before transitioning into furniture design working for Sauder.  He has had his own high end solid wood modern furniture company, Commonhouse Furniture, as well as done freelance furniture design work for Starbucks, Henredon, and several others.  He has exhibited for many years at ICFF in NYC with Commonhouse as well as the collection from his pet project creating the niche premium sub-brand Sauder Boutique.  His work has been featured in Elle Decor, Design Milk, HGTV magazine and several other print and web design publications. 

Tim Antoniuk

Tim Antoniuk is an Associate Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Alberta and is the owner of ARCHITURE, a micro space design, research and production company. Co-founding Hothouse Design Studio in the early 90s and having worked with international design companies such as DROOG, over the last 15 years Tim’s research and practice has investigated the production of morphing/shape-shifting materials, products and interior spaces.

Currently designing transformable voice-activated micro living spaces and reactive objects for multi-unit developments, he focuses on creating sustainable environments through heighten spatial functionality and emotional durability of integrated built environments.