Creativity is not a gift, it is the skill of being open-minded and playful.
A creative leader with refined taste is the most valuable asset to any product brand.
And for this person to have the ability to translate a vision across all mediums is essential.

Great products–great design–memorable design, design that endures happens when the maker has a deep understanding of the material–of the medium–they are using. It is only with an integral symbiosis of physics and aesthetics that a product can endure.

I am not a master of all media, but I’m familiar with many material worlds, and I have the rare skill of empowering different media to express their unique spirits.

I’ve made a lot of things.

Here’s my light object in an exhibition used by Haroon Mirza at the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland, in a show alongside works by Alexander Calder and Anish Kapoor.

This is my logo.This is a logo I made for someone else.

This is a lacquered ash wood chair I designed and fabricated, named after the French artist Yves Klein. (It’s actually comfortable.)

This is another one of my chairs.

I designed this powder-coated steel rod side table.

And these sheet steel tables. They nest into a cube.

And these sand-blasted, rubber-dipped cypress wood stools.

This is the 3D CAD software I use to develop many of my products. It’s called Rhino3D.

This is my light object called DoF (Depth of Field). It’s seven feet tall. Its effect changes depending on its distance from the wall.

And this is one called F/G (Figure/Ground). An object providing its own light, it defines the world it lives in.

This is my merino wool felt lamp called SOFT. Unlike most lamps, it is designed to be touched.

I arranged and shot all the photos on this site.

Except the next two, but I am in the first, and the second was shot by Thomas Eakins in 1883; it’s one of the the first male nude photographs in history.

I have a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BFA in industrial design and graphic design from the University of Michigan. I run my eponymous furniture and lighting brand, and am a professor and currently the director of the industrial design master’s program at the University of Illinois Chicago.

I have sold products to Nike, Bergdorf Goodman, Ann Taylor, Ace Hotel, and Poliform, and my work has been published in FRAME, The New York Times, Elle Decor, Details, and Wallpaper.

My work has been exhibited in Chicago, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, and Basel.

This is my band. It’s called sponj.

We make poetic indie electronic music for people to move to.

I make all the music in the band. I use an Elektron Analog Rytm MKII analog drum machine sampler.

I also use sounds from my Oberheim TEO-5 polyphonic synthesizer.

I designed and fabricated all of these materials, including our logo.

The blue image is from Welsh singer Mary Watts Hughes from 1886. She invented a device–the Eidophone–that captured her voice visually by imprinting it on glass with paint pigment.
(The image is now open-source.)

Here’s a collage of some things I like:

Commes de Garçons Wallet, Zia Tiles, Zieta Plopp Stool, Loewe SP26 Look, Kinco Work Gloves, Dries Van Noten SP26 Look, Schiaparelli Bag, Fred Sandback Installation, Antique Woodworkers Bench, Laurids Gallée Lamp, Dirk Van der Kooij Table, Andy Stott Cover Art, Ultramarine Blue Pigment, Petoskey Stone, Bioluminescent Petunias, Ferrari 328GTS, Alexander McQueen Armadillo Heels, Ducati 900SS CR, USM Haller Unit, Vollebak Copper Jacket

And here’s a link to a playlist of songs I like.

Our entire notion of beauty comes from nature (it all relates back to survival).
Taste comes from surrounding oneself with beautiful things, and I have always been a lover of the natural world. Creative people are born with sensitivity, but it’s up to them to decide what to pay attention to, and what to surround themselves with.

I notice everything. I am insatiably curious, open, and playful. I value the environment and socio- and economic equity. I am a lover of all humans and the unique cultures they’ve created. I have–at this point in my life–surrounded myself with enough beauty, learned enough about the media of the world, and made enough things to be ready to be your Creative Director.

For more of my object design work, you can find everything here:
www.tjokeefe.com

Here’s my Instagram:
@tjokeefestudio

And you can call me at: 734-730-9845

TJ O’KEEFE