Hella Jongerius (1963) graduated from the Eindhoven Design Academy and made her debut in 1993 at Droog Design, a more or less haphazardly formed group of Dutch designers who caused a furore in the 1990s with their alternative group exhibitions at the Milan furniture shows, exhibitions that were greatly admired by the design media.

In 2000, she set up her own design studio in Rotterdam, the JongeriusLab, where a striking amount of experimentation was done with traditional techniques. She succeeded in establishing a strong international reputation for herself independently of the Droog Design collective, and in recent years has frequently been invited to appear as guest of honour at design events and international furniture shows.

First major retrospective

At Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam Misfit is currently on show (until 13 February 2011).

Arranged in circular displays ordered by colour rather than by product, the exhibition features industrial products (for IKEA, Kettal etc.), unique experiments and sketch models.

Jongerius tries to break away from the rigidity of industrial design. Quality, she states, is not determined by the perfect and the predictable, but by the devious, the “misfit”.

Monograph

Along with the exhibition, the monograph Hella Jongerius, Misfit (Phaidon Press) was published, featuring over 300 images of Jongerius’ work. Author is Louise Schouwenberg, also curator of the exhibition.

Irma Boom designed the book.

Jongerius in The Low Countries Yearbook

In 2007, The Low Countries Yearbook featured the article “Innovation against Forgetting”. In it, author Chris Meplon describes Hella Jongerius’ career. Read the entire article here.

In the most recent issue of TLC Yearbook, you can read an article on book designer Irma Boon.