David Irwin

David Irwin is an industrial designer driven by a curiosity for how and why things are made. For Irwin, design ideas grow from a desire to assign purpose to both traditional and contemporary manufacturing processes.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Irwin was drawn to Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, by its reputation for hands-on teaching and a holistic approach to 3-D design.

In 2007, he was awarded the New Designers Peter Walker Award for Innovation in Furniture Design with his final project, a steam-bent timber frame chair. The Jed chair gave a contemporary twist to the traditional aesthetic of a lounge chair by utilising the inherent properties of timber through steam bending and natural soap flakes as a finish, to create very few environmental disadvantages. The chair also caught the eye of Bethan Gray, then Design Director at Habitat, who thought it would work well within the Habitat collection, giving David his first taste of the manufacture and retail process.

In 2010, Irwin completed a post-graduate fellowship in the Designers in Residence Program at Northumbria’s School of Design, a program that furnishes workspace, equipment and mentoring to chosen graduates of the 3-D Design program. A year later, he founded his own studio in Newcastle, where he has continued to produce designs which combine strong conceptual thinking with a fundamental usefulness, resulting in simple, innovative and refined solutions to aid our daily lives.

"I suppose the satisfaction I get from seeing an idea make the jump off paper and into reality is the reason I became a designer."- David Irwin.

The Narin Folding Chair for Case was awarded the prestigious Design Guild Mark Award in 2017.

2008 - Winner of New Designers One Year on Award

2011 - Winner Best Interior Product, Design Event Mart

2013 - Awarded Homes & Gardens Young Designer of the Year

2013 - Winner Core77 Design Awards, Furniture & Lighting, Professional category

2014 - A’ Design Awards, Gold winner, Lighting Products and Lighting Projects category

2017 - Winner of Design Guild Mark Award for the Narin Chair