Angharad Summers is a product and furniture designer from New Zealand currently based between Melbourne, Australia and Berlin, Germany. Her designs aim to be interesting, sustainable and non-egocentric pieces. She wants to design pieces that are functional and/or thought-provoking in order to provide people with something that is new, yet necessary.
Non-egocentric design is design which is selfless and altruistic. It is about something bigger than the designer and their desire to create something beautiful. It can come in the form of a functional, useful object which is solving a problem or it can come in the form of an object which isn't necessarily functional but which makes a statement and presents a wider issue for people to discuss.
She has been named one of the final 30 for the Australian Design Review’s inaugural 30 Under 30 design program, a finalist for Australia’s Next Top Designer, has recently received the New Talent Award in the Furniture Design category as part of the LOOP Design Awards and made the shortlist for the IDEA Awards in the Object, Furniture and Lighting - Professional category. As a designer-maker she received Highly Commended in Wood Review’s 2023 Maker of the Year Awards in the World and Tables, Chairs & Desks categories. She also co-organised Pop ‘round: one person’s junk is another person’s chair, a furniture exhibition for Melbourne Design Week 2023. Although she focusses on furniture design Summers also pursues other design projects including writing, graphic and product design.
Her freelance services are also available via Twine: https://www.twine.fm/angharadsummers.
Press
“Design as a Way of Life” - Australian Wood Review, February 2025/Issue 126, Pages 56 - 59
LOOP Design Awards 2024, Winner of the New Talent Award (Furniture) for Fish, October 2024
“The Struggle is Real” - Australian Wood Review, September 2024/Issue 124, Pages 60 - 62
“Waste Redesigned” - Australian Wood Review, December 2023/Issue 121, Pages 76 - 79
Maker of the Year Awards Shortlist, November 2023
30UNDER30 alum Angharad Summers on design as a way of life, 20th November 2023
IDEA Awards Shortlist, August 2023
Australia’s Next Top Designer Finalists, May 2023
Australian Design Review 30 Under 30 Final 30, February 2023
Design Fringe 2022 Catalogue, September 2022
“Ngā Hau E Whā (Four Winds)” - Mana, Dec 2015/Jan 2016, Pages 8 - 9
“Our House” - Urbis, December 2015/Issue 89
Design Assembly, 17th November 2015