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The Designers

Our Australian Designers

Merging culture, ideas, spirituality and sustainability

Meet the award winning people behind the design of our products. Australia's creative industry is small but strong. Although it is an isolated country, it has a strong mix of culture through multiculturalism – which has shaped the open minded spirit of Australians.

Australia is a country surrounded by nature – encouraging designers to think more deeply about the impacts of their work. Opting for more sustainable processes, materials, utility and thought to the end-of-life of their works.

We are proud to present and share the inspirations and purpose of our designers to Japan. Have a read through their profiles, or come and visit our store to learn more.

For retailers interested to stock our products or collaborate with our designers, please contact us.

Ryan Hanrahan

Addition Studio

Location
Byron Bay, Australia

Specialty
Minimalistic wellness & ritual goods

Website
https://additionstudio.jau.co.jp

Ryan Hanrahan is the man behind Addition Studio, a multi-discipline design house that effortlessly melds earthy, rugged Australiana motifs with a modern sensibility. Addition Studio was formed in 2010 and began producing furniture, lighting, wellness products, and works that combine aromatic items with contemporary sculpture. Ryan's driving motivations are health and wellbeing, ancient rituals, sculptural aesthetics, and modern art that's as practical as it is beautiful. Organic but made to serve its user, Addition Studio's items are useful, sensory, and proudly designed in Australia.

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Lesley Williams

Botanica Boutique

Location
Adelaide, South Australia

Specialty
Terrariums, Mossariums

Website
https://botanica.jau.co.jp

Lesley Williams is a talented industrial designer, graphics designer, singer and music producer. With her line of terrariums and planters for her brand Botanica Boutique, she created a philosophy to "bring the outdoors in", allowing anyone to grow moss and tropical plants inside their homes in a minimalistic, low maintenance micro-climate.

Her range includes terrariums made from recycled plastic, biodegradable cork and also includes durable materials such as concrete, marble and wood. The glass on the terrariums are skilfully hand blown and shaped to ensure condensation cycles back down to the moss.

Moss is a sustainable eco-friendly plant to grow, it doesn't require fertilisers or pesticides when grown in the terrarium. Her terrariums allow other plants that enjoy high humidity to be grown too, and her range includes open-air terrariums for plants that enjoy moderate humidity.


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Bianca Lambert

Tom Wilson

Capra Designs

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Planters, Vases and Homewares

Website
https://capradesigns.jau.co.jp

Capra Designs is an Australian design studio that specialises in the artful conception of beautifully refined pots and stands. Born out of the love and collection of plants, Melbourne couple Bianca Lambert and Thomas Wilson have cultivated their joint passion for contemporary, mindful design constructed with exceptional craftsmanship to create a number of unique collections of plant centred home accessories.

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Lauren Steller

Champ Co

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Recycled airplane tyre homewares

Website
https://www.lessplastic.jp/

Lauren Steller is many things. A designer. A doer. A “play” enthusiast, not theatre, but the fun type of play! For Lauren, play is a way to break down barriers and spark confidence and meaningful connection.

As a practising architect, Lauren observed the ways people inhabit spaces differently. The building is always the same but the way the individual connects, navigates and intercepts it is forever changing. We play by our own set of rules and this very behaviour inspired Lauren to develop her interest in play theory beyond architecture, launching her sustainable product range made from recycled airplane tyres, Champ Co, in 2015.

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Kate Stokes

Haslett Grounds

Coco Flip

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Furniture and Lighting

Kate Stokes is one half of the duo that makes up Coco Flip, a design studio specialising in furniture and lighting design, that was established in 2010. Originally hailing from Perth, Kate was introduced to the world of design through her studies at Curtin University, where she majored in Industrial Design. Following an illuminating experience displaying a piece of her furniture design at Milan’s SaloneSatellite in her final year at university and several years of work experience in creative management, she was awarded a government-funded ArtStart grant in 2010, allowing her to take the leap into starting her own business, which she now runs with husband Haslett Grounds in Melbourne.

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Abigail Forsyth

KeepCup

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Reusable coffee and tea cups

Website
https://www.lessplastic.jp

KeepCup is the brand that is synonymous with creating the reuse culture we see around the world today. The first brand to launch and trial reusable coffee cups for take-out customers.

Siblings Abigail and Jamie Forsyth opened up a cafe in 1998, unhappy with the amount of disposable cups ending up in the trash, they decided something needed to be done. They had trialed successfully to have customers use home mugs to take-away coffee – but this was not an ideal solution - coffee can spill whilst walking.

So the siblings took a gamble and researched and experimented with designing a purpose built cup. The cup they designed needed to be easy and quick for barista's to use and must allowing the customer to take their coffee away with ease.

The KeepCup was born, and is now one of the most recognisable brands in Australia, Europe, the UK and USA - used by millions of coffee lovers, saving 8 billion disposable cups per year.

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Cindy-Lee Davies

Lightly

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Planters, Vases and Homewares

Cindy-Lee Davies is the director and designer behind Lightly, a Melbourne-based company whose products emphasise functionality, resourcefulness and enrichment within the home.

With concepts such as personal relationships and longevity at the core of the brand’s philosophy, Davies has designed a versatile and colorful range of home, living and lighting products that have led her to exhibit work both around Australia and abroad, and have propelled Lightly forward as a well-sought-after manufacturer of authentic, enduring interior crafts.

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Joshua Tong

MAHŌ Sensory

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Modern incense with contemporary scents

Website
http://www.jau.co.jp/maho-sensory

There are many incense brands on the market, MAHŌ Sensory is a little different. Joshua Tong, from Melbourne founded the brand with the goal of redefining incense with a more contemporary, yet refined scents - you might even say they are luxurious.

MAHŌ's sensory sticks have a burn time of 60 minutes each, they are one of the longest burning incenses on the market. Combined with various gemstone incense holders – there is a strong sense of spirituality mixed with modern finesse in this combination.

Tong's Vietnamese Australian heritage had influenced his interest passion for incense and ritual. His mother would light incense regularly to honour ancestors who had passed away and she would tell him all about the rituals of burning incenses and why it was important.

A merger of ritual and contemporary living is what Tong envisions MAHŌ Sensory to be.

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Ebony Russell

Piped Dream Studio

Location
Sydney, Australia

Specialty
Vases and Candle holders

Ebony Russell is the Sydney based artist behind experimental ceramics brand Piped Dream Studio. Pushing the envelope, she has found her place in the new wave of artists questioning the traditional conceptions of the porcelain medium. Gravity defying ribbons of pale pink lay upon towers of whipped cream to create intricate and delectable rococo-esque statues - think wedding cake meets Marie Antoinette meets fine china. A contemporary ceramicist, lecturer, masters of Fine Art graduate and a mother, her work for Piped Dreams delves into a time before all these achievements and into the nostalgic bedroom of a younger Ebony.

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Ashleigh Sampson

Casie Brooker

Posie

Location
Byron Bay, Australia

Specialty
Soy wax candles

Website
https://posie.jau.co.jp

Posie’s co-founders Ashleigh Sampson and Casie Brooker design complex candles for simple moments. Forever inspired by the ability of scent to evoke powerful memories, Posie’s scent library is diverse, informed by memory, travel and experiences of awe in nature. Each blend is carefully formulated to communicate a place, feeling or moment in time. We see scent as a mechanism to further enjoy the ordinary rituals of our everyday.

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Rina Bernabei

Rina Bernabei

Location
Sydney, Australia

Specialty
Handmade Ceramics

Website
https://www.clayfragments.com.au/

Rina Bernabei is an industrial designer and clay maker based in Sydney with over 30 years of expertise. She expertly combines handmade craft practices and digital technologies such as 3D ceramic printing.

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Ryan L. Foote

R L Foote Design

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Porcelain ceramics and experimental glazes

Ryan Foote is the man behind R L Foote Design Studio, a Melbourne-based design studio that specializes in hand-made unique ceramic flatware and a host of contemporary interior design objects.

His unique designs has even garnered the attention of a Michelin star chef; Ryan’s passion for cooking has influenced the focus of his works – designing ceramics that can enhance the culinary experience. Thinking like a chef, Ryan often employs experimental techniques and ingredients to his ceramics and glazes to create a unique product which pushes new boundaries in ceramic design.

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Sam Seljak

Karina Seljak

Seljak Brand

Location
Brisbane, Australia

Specialty
Closed loop, recycled wool blankets

Website
https://seljak.jau.co.jp

Sam and sister Karina Seljak are the sister team behind forward-thinking Australian textile brand Seljak.

Seljak creates durable, but snuggly, eco-friendly blankets using Merino wool offcuts collected from the factory floor of Australia’s oldest mill located in Tasmania.

The duo’s combined wealth of experience in the global fashion industry and small business world, as well as their passion for innovative sustainability solutions and eye for great design, have propelled the label from a bedroom project between two sisters to one of the most exciting ethical businesses in Australia.

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Henry Wilson

Studio Henry Wilson

Location
Sydney, Australia

Specialty
Heavy brutalist objects

Website
https://www.studiohenrywilson.jp

Henry Wilson is a Sydney based designer, a traveller, a considered creator and man who has mastered the art of balancing form and function in perfect unity. It sounds like a strange contradiction, but Wilson’s raw, almost brutalist pieces are statement pieces in the way that they’ve been crafted not to make a statement. As a designer, Wilson worships the democratic ideologies of usefulness, resourcefulness and the beauty in the bareness of the industrial process. He’s collaborated with Aesop, crafted stunning furniture, and created a table joint system that redefined contemporary utilitarianism.

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Tommy Ashby

Courtney Gibbs

Subtle Bodies

Location
Melbourne, Australia

Specialty
Single Origin natural incense

Website
https://subtle-bodies.jau.co.jp/

Tommy Ashby and Courtney Gibbs are the creators of Subtle Bodies. With their passion of researching the history and traditions of incense - they turned this hobby into a pursuit, to share their knowledge through. This led them on a journey around the world, to create more natural, simpler, pure wood incense – something that was a rarity.

The result is Subtle Bodies - with a small but carefully selected range of single origin incense. Each incence is made of only two types of wood - one fragrant wood, and one binding wood (to form and hold the shape).

Unlike other fragrant wood incense, the pair have opted to go single-origin, which means sourcing wood from only one particular forest or area - rather than a blend of the same wood from multiple regions. This results in a more distinct aroma that is unique and particular to whichever forest the wood was harvested from.

The pair also considered the sustainability of their wood sources, opting for well managed forests which take into consideration regrowth and the environment around it.

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Bronwyn Kidd

SUSTOMi

Location
Hobart, Australia

Specialty
Beeswax wraps, eco bags, sustainable wares

Website
https://www.lessplastic.jp/

For Bronwyn Kidd, growing up in the natural surroundings of Tasmania, sustainability and low waste living had always been part of her life. After travelling and seeing the impacts of waste on the world, she wanted to do something to make low-waste living more accessible.

She started SUSTOMi, creating colourful beeswax wraps, to replace plastic wraps when storing leftover foods or taking food to work or a picnic. Her range includes collaborations with Australian artists to make sustainable living a little more exciting.

"SUSTOMi is about making better choices around food and the products we use daily. It’s about getting life freshly sorted. It’s about creating good habits and nurturing values that support a low-waste lifestyle. Give to yourself and be kind to the earth in the process."

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Gary Newton

Kim Newton

Tribe Earth

Location
Fremantle, Australia

Specialty
Hand made, pure-plant incense

Website
https://www.jau.co.jp/tribe-earth

Gary and Kim Newton are the husband-wife team behind Tribe Earth, a Fremantle based wellness brand that creates ceremonial focused healing products such as pure plant incense and essential oils. Resourceful, sustainable and spiritual; each product from the range is handcrafted with the intention of healing through harnessing plant energy. Tribe Earth is a culmination of the couple's ‘lifelong love of wild spaces and the connection between consciousness and nature.’ Proudly made in Australia, they work respectively with the Australian wilderness making sure to give back more than they source to ensure sustainable production.

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For retailers interested to stock our products or collaborate with our designers, please contact us.

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