How Ingo Maurer’s Team Keeps the Light On

Ingo Maurer’s studio in Munich is filled with prototypes, scraps of material, sketches, and works-in-progress suspended in various states of creation. It’s in this industrious environment that the late Ingo Maurer’s team continues to work today, carrying forward a design legacy known for its wit, warmth, and curiosity.

I spoke with longtime Ingo Maurer collaborator and now creative director, Axel Schmid, about what it’s like to work inside this ever-evolving creative lab—how he began working for Ingo, what the day-to-day looks like, and how a small, unassuming lighting fixture called Strange Little Thing went from a forgotten drawer to Milan Design Week. 

Could you tell me a bit about how you first got involved with Ingo and his practice? What initially drew you in?

I first met Ingo back in 1994. At the time, my professor was on sabbatical and asked Ingo—who was around the same age at the time—to take over his class at the university in Stuttgart. I was one of the students in that course, so that was our first encounter.

After I graduated in ‘97 or ‘98, I went to Japan on a scholarship. When I returned to Germany, I started looking for a job. My first choice was to work for Konstantin Grcic, but at the time, he only had two interns and couldn’t offer me a position. He did invite me to visit his studio if I was ever in Munich, though.

Since I was heading to Munich anyway, I thought I’d also stop by Ingo’s office and see if they knew of any opportunities for a young designer. When I visited Ingo just said, “Start here right away. We’d be happy to have a bigger team.” So it happened pretty much by coincidence. I hadn’t planned on it, and honestly, I didn’t know what to expect.

Coming from the academy, I had this idea that product design was about working on a variety of objects. At first Ingo’s office seemed limited—it was focused mostly on lighting. But once I started, I realized there were no real limitations. It wasn’t about the object itself; it was about the kind of work we did. The range of projects was so broad and exciting that what was supposed to be a one-year stint has now turned into 26 years.

What was Ingo like as a teacher?

Honestly he wasn’t the best fit for teaching at a university. He was often frustrated—the students were too slow for him. He expected a fast pace, lots of ideas, constant energy. That environment just didn’t suit him.

But once I started working in his studio, I understood why. The office was like a high-revving machine. There was so much enthusiasm, so much passion. It wasn’t about following a set curriculum or pace. It was about discovery and experimentation, pushing boundaries and tinkering with new ideas. Teaching wasn’t his place. His place was in the thick of it exploring, creating, and inventing.

How did the studio function when Ingo was at the helm? Was it different than it is today?

It was fast-paced, definitely. But not in a rigid or overly structured way—especially not in the way people might expect from a German design office. It was more organic.

All our decisions came from the process itself. Working on a project meant being really attuned to what was happening in the moment. If something interesting or magical popped up, we’d follow that thread. It wasn’t like, “OK, now we go from A to B to C to D.” It was more like, “Let’s go from A to B and see what happens.” Maybe then we jump to F or N or something totally unexpected.

The mindset around being open, curious, and responsive was deeply embedded in the team. And that’s part of why there wasn’t much turnover. People really felt a connection to the work and to the way we worked.

It sounds like a lot of people stayed with the studio for a long time. Did that stability shape how the work evolved over the years?

Yes absolutely. Many of the people who worked there stayed for decades—some even over 20 years. That kind of longevity created a deep shared understanding of how to approach and drive projects.

Ingo started the studio in 1963 and over time a very specific, almost organic way of working developed. It wasn’t something written down or formally taught—it just evolved. That continuity really became our strength, especially when Ingo passed away. There was no uncertainty about what to do next. We already had the method; we’d been living it for years.

Ingo had always been about pushing the system forward, keeping everything in motion. That momentum didn’t stop with him; it just became our responsibility to keep it going. My role was to continue overseeing the design department, to help guide that process and energy.

Some people outside the studio asked, “Who’s going to have the ideas now?” But that was never how it worked. It wasn’t like Ingo sat alone and handed down ideas to the development team. He was more of an orchestrator, someone who encouraged experimentation and movement. That culture didn’t disappear with him because it was embedded in how we worked.

The older team members could pass on that approach to the younger ones. At the same time, we were always encouraged to stay open to new ideas and technologies, especially the fresh perspectives that came from younger designers. 

Were there any specific philosophies or design principles that he passed down? Anything that really stuck with you or shaped the studio’s identity?

There was never a strict philosophy or a style we had to follow. There wasn’t even an “Ingo Maurer style,” really. Each project was treated as something new, a fresh challenge, and that’s why our collection is so varied.

People sometimes associate us with poetic, whimsical pieces—like ones with wings or made of delicate paper—but we also have raw, minimal objects, tiny designs, huge installations, lush and luxurious ones, and very rational ones too. That range was important to us. It reflected the fact that there were no limitations on how we approached a project.

When Foscarini acquired the studio in 2022 they asked us, “What is the DNA of Ingo Maurer?” Even after 24 years in the company, I couldn’t answer. We’d never thought about it in those terms—we just did the work. So they actually brought in a scientist from Italy who specializes in analyzing a company’s DNA, and it was a fascinating experience. It got us to reflect on our process in a way we never had before.

It wasn’t about creating a document that said, “This is what Ingo Maurer is.” It was about understanding ourselves better—for them, and for us. Now when I talk to journalists, I have more language to describe what we do. Before we just talked about our projects and assumed the results spoke for themselves—but that’s not always the case.

The studio has both creative and production sides. Can you tell me a bit more about how it’s structured today?

The company has always had two creative departments. One is what we call the Designery, which focuses more on product design and our collection. The other is the Project Department, which handles architectural work—things like interior design, train stations, that kind of thing. 

It’s a unique setup—especially because we also have our own production, which isn’t typical in the design world. So while I’ve been overseeing the design side for quite some time, the structure remains collaborative. That’s something Ingo instilled from the beginning, and it’s something we’ve maintained even as the company has grown and changed.

Actually, we have all the departments you’d find in a big company—just on a smaller scale. We have our own purchasing, project management, production, everything. That kind of setup wasn’t unusual in the 1960s, but today it makes us pretty unique.

I started in the Designery, mainly working on products. But I also gradually got involved with the project side. It was a bit like being the libero in a soccer team, playing multiple positions depending on what was needed.

For example, I worked on the Snowflake project in New York in 2004 and 2005, and also on the Alaska Project in Milan. That gave me a lot of project-driven experience even before I officially had any sort of leadership title.

Do you think of your role now as more about preserving the brand’s legacy, or pushing it forward with new materials and technologies?

It’s definitely a mix, but the focus is on moving forward. Of course I care about preserving the essence of what we’ve done, but we don’t believe our biggest or most expensive piece is automatically our best.

There’s another kind of quality we look for—something more intangible. But looking backward only plays a small part in what we do. We need most of our energy focused on the future. That’s really how we define ourselves now.

Instead of spending time explaining what Ingo Maurer is or isn’t, we’d rather use that energy doing the work—creating new things that speak for themselves. My role isn’t to limit the team by saying, “This is what we are.” That would be the wrong approach. My job is to open doors, to give the designers the confidence to explore new directions.

I don’t want to give instructions. I want to keep the conversation alive. It should be a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s how Ingo worked with us and it’s the spirit I try to maintain now.

What was it like working in the studio, especially back when Ingo was still around? How would you describe the day-to-day?

That’s a great question. People who aren’t familiar with design studios are often really surprised when they first visit ours. It’s an open space—completely full of materials, mock-ups, models, cutouts…kind of like a cave of color and forms.

But we don’t do that to create a “creative atmosphere”—it just happens because we start a lot of things, and sometimes we have to stop or change direction midway. We keep parts of those explorations around, either for later use or simply as reminders. The result is a sort of organized explosion of ideas and materials.

It’s also surprisingly quiet. There’s no music playing, which some people don’t expect from a design studio. It’s very concentrated. You’ll hear someone on the phone now and then, or a few people talking, or the sounds of someone doing hands-on trials with paper or materials. But mostly it’s focused and calm.

The space is fully open—every desk next to another—which really invites everyone to give feedback. Designers can easily comment on what’s happening at the desk next to them, and we encourage that. It’s very open and collaborative.

Each designer takes responsibility for their own project, from the very first sketches to the final handoff to production. That includes everything: material research, design drawings, packaging, marketing, even the communication with clients.

We don’t split tasks between different people like “you do all the drawings” or “you handle only materials.” Everyone does everything on their project. And that’s how we ensure our products are so different from each other—because each designer finds their own solution, their own path.

Because many of us have been working together for a long time, we know each other well. That means we can give feedback more efficiently, more directly—even sparingly sometimes. But it’s all built on trust and familiarity.

I’m curious how your new Ingo Maurer light Strange Little Thing came to life. It debuted during Milan Design Week and it’s such a fun piece. What was the starting point?

As the name kind of hints, it’s really a strange story. The idea actually started more than six years ago. Even earlier than that in 2003, I had made a very minimal desk lamp. It was just bent aluminum with an LED module stuck on it. I was trying to use as few parts as possible.

Then six years ago I thought, “What if I take that concept even further and turn it into a pendant lamp?” So I got rid of even the structure that holds the LED in place. Instead I just hung the module directly from the cable. That was the first prototype.

Ingo saw it back then, but like many ideas, it just went into a drawer. That happens a lot—some projects don’t move forward right away.

Then in 2023, Foscarini visited our studio in Munich. They said, “You have so many amazing things lying around here—next time, can we just plug them in and put them all in one space?” So that’s what we did. We gathered about 30 different pieces, and in one corner was this tiny model of Strange Little Thing.

Carlo Urbinati from Foscarini walked through everything, and at the end he pointed at it and said, “What is this strange thing?” I explained the idea—how it was all about reducing material and structure to the bare minimum. He liked it and said, “We should come back to this when there’s time.”

So it wasn’t originally part of the main plan for Milan?

No not at all. We were mainly working on four other pieces at the time—like Nalum and Bruce Springsteel. Strange Little Thing was kind of floating around the studio. One day it was hanging here, the next there.

Then I had this call with a PCB supplier and asked, “Could we include this optic?” We made a quick prototype and just a few weeks before the fair, we had something that worked. So we brought it to Milan just to see how people reacted.

With pieces like Nalum, people were immediately impressed—lots of “oohs” and “ahhs.” But with Strange Little Thing, it was more like, “Oh…OK?” No one really expected it to be a real lamp.

And that’s when I got excited. I thought—”OK, let’s prove it is a real lamp.” The module that clips onto the cable weighs less than an ounce and is only around 3 inches wide. It may be the lightest lamp on Earth—but I didn’t want to compromise on the light quality.

I found this amazing LED from a Japanese company called Nichia. It has a very high color rendering index—even a specific one for skin tones. But with such a small form factor, heat became an issue. So instead of adding a bulky heatsink, I embedded a little heat sensor near the LED. If the temperature goes too high, it dims slightly from 100% down to 98 or 99% just enough to reduce stress on the LED.

That way I could get strong, quality light from something so minimal.

Do you find yourself usually drawn to this kind of minimalism, or is your work all over the place stylistically?

It really depends. For example when I worked on Snowflake, that needed to be a huge structure—16,000 crystals, meant to sparkle. So that was not about reduction or minimalism at all.

I enjoy shifting my approach based on the project. If I always followed the same method, people might say, “Ah, that’s an Axel Schmid design.” But for me the product should be more important than the designer. The lamp dictates what it wants to be, not the other way around.

In terms of the future for the Ingo Maurer brand—is there anything on the horizon you’re excited about? 

I try to maintain the variety in what we do. Not just to represent the brand, but also to keep everyone at Ingo Maurer flexible in how they think. If we repeated the same types of projects over and over, we’d become narrow-minded. But with different kinds of work—some technical, some poetic, some long-term, some spontaneous—we stay open and creative.

We just finished a train station project that took more than ten years to realize. At the same time, we had something like Strange Little Thing, which came together with just a few days of development. I don’t think one is better than the other. 

When I first joined Ingo Maurer, I hesitated a bit. I thought, “They’re just about lighting.” But after 26 years I have to say—the wonder of light keeps growing for me. It’s strange and beautiful. And it’s kind of perfect that the sun is shining right now as we talk about this.

Light lets us orient ourselves. It brings warmth. It allows life to grow. Of course we’re not the creators of this cosmic force—but we do get to interact with it, shape it a little, reflect it back into the world in our own ways.

That’s what gives the work depth. At first glance designing lamps might seem like a technical job—or maybe an aesthetic one. It’s about shapes, materials, wiring. But when you spend decades doing it, you realize you’re not just designing objects. You’re shaping the way people experience something ancient and essential: light.

And on a bigger scale, light is this miraculous thing. It originates in the heart of a star, travels millions of kilometers through space, hits our planet, and somehow becomes something we can touch with our eyes and minds. 

Working with light every day means I get to stay close to that mystery. I might not be able to explain it in full scientific detail, but I feel it. And I try to honor that in the way I design. Even the smallest lamp—something that weighs less than an ounce and clips onto a table—can carry that meaning.

Of course we’re not creators of that eternal light, but we can be a tiny part of it. We get to choose how it enters a space, how it moves, how it feels. For me that makes the work much more than a job. 

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