“I first picked up a blow torch when I needed to repair a vintage motorcycle,” explains Tom Dixon “That’s when I discovered I loved welding as much as I loved motorbikes.”

The one-time nightclub impresario and self-taught fabricator’s first industrial design experiments were with pieces of discarded scrap metal that he found as a student, before London’s Victoria and Albert Museum purchased his S Chair for their permanent collection in 1992, with the Museum of Modern Art in New York following suit soon after

Dixon has fostered an eponymous brand renowned for creating metal light fixtures, which have become emblems of modern British design.

“Design as a term is thrown about so casually,” says Dixon, “but in the end all designers have one common goal, which is trying to improve the way we live.”

via Nowness