Hahn, Mathias

London based Product Designer Mathias Hahn was born 1977 in Germany, and graduated from Essen University, Germany, as Diplom Designer for Industrial Design in 2004. During his studies in Germany he worked as a freelance designer on several projects with industry and gained experience in the Product Design department of Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, Germany. Since his move to London he graduated from the MA Design Products course at the Royal College of Art under Ron Arad in 2006 and worked as a freelance designer for Tom Dixon. Late 2006 he was one of the founding members of OKAY studio.

Through his background in Industrial Design, working according to production and manufacturing processes, Mathias has a natural desire for designing towards use and functionality. Describing his process, he further referes to an intuitive approach that introduces experimental curiosity to his way of working. He pictures his work as having two sides. One is based on the idea to create objects that have a place in everyday life and solve a particular problem, the other one is more playful and related to the narrative side of the design process which often functions as a starting point. Depending on the project these two aspects come together and form useful commodities that show a slight layer of humor, social context or even naivity. In a sense Hahn’s work is a combination of playfulness as well as functional reduction towards utility.

Mathias is attracted by the material integrity and longevity of everyday objects - in opposition to fast, ephemeral product consumption. His recent work explores traditional technologies and materials, while introducing basic mechanical principles and applications.
Transforming these into simple but useful objects he takes a twisted angle at familiar object categories, in order to find new fields of application.