King & Miranda Design is one of the most internationally successful design studios. Their work uses innovative technology and industrial processes, but a strong poetic character and, very often, incorporates elements of humour.
King & Miranda is a collaboration between Perry King, an Englishman, and Santiago Miranda, a Spaniard. Perry began designing office machines and furniture for Olivetti in 1965, where he created the famous Valentine typewriter with Ettore Sottsass. In 1972 he began to co-ordinate the Olivetti corporate identity program. Santiago studied in Seville and transferred to Italy in 1971, where he worked as a designer and also as a consultant to Olivetti.
The duo founded their studio together in 1976, designing objects, furniture, lighting, computers, interfaces, and consumer electronics, as well as interiors and exhibitions for clients in Europe, Japan, and the United States.
Describing their unique method of design, Deyan Sudjic writes: “What they bring to design has nothing to do with an instantly recognisable stylistic signature, or a set of mannerisms, or even the adoption of a portemanteau of attitudes borrowed from philosophy or literature. Instead they have a particular way of looking at problems, and a freshness of approach, one that combines functionalism, with the richer intensity of their own personalities. Above all to them, design is not a question of putting half digested imagery through a blender, but is the result of observation and thought, a taming of the machine age, with the introspection that comes from an examination of the unchanging preoccupations of man, for conviviality, sitting by a window, and looking into the embers of the fire. ”