Luck brought them a commission to design a west London restaurant (they later worked on Damien Hirst’s restaurant Pharmacy, in Notting Hill).
They met as students at the Royal College of Art in 1992, but found the architecture and interiors course they had signed up for too lacklustre for two eager and ambitious designers, and vented their frustrations by joining forces to get their ideas out of the sketch book and into the world.
It’s this resistance to being straitjacketed by expectation that brought the pair together. They work at the ‘scarier side of challenging’ “I think that’s what’s kept us really energised and creative as a studio.” “We don’t see the boundaries and we’ve never conformed to being put in a particular box,” Osgerby says. They have turned their hand to fabrics, tiles and showers, collaborated with Coca-Cola, Sony and Levi’s and overseen large-scale architectural projects. This is why their work is so diverse – there has been furniture for design brands such as Vitra and Cappellini and lighting for Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Images of projects on one of the Barber Osgerby studio walls © Michael Sinclair They may be known for a design approach that instils simplicity into form and function, but they like being out of their comfort zone, working at what they call the “scarier side of challenging” and frequently venturing into unfamiliar design.
It’s these kinds of projects – experimental, exhilarating and nerve-racking – that keep the creative blood pumping for Barber and Osgerby. “If it had gone out, we’d have probably ended up working in Woolies.” “It was such an incredible feeling – only we couldn’t look as Steve Redgrave ran into the stadium,” laughs Osgerby. Or there’s the experience of designing the 2012 Olympic Torch, which was carried across the country for 70 days leading up to the opening ceremony. Jay Osgerby (left) and Edward Barber (left) in their east London studio © Michael Sinclair
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