Jonathan Crinion

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Jonathan Crinion was born in Liverpool, England in 1953. He began to show a proclivity for engineering and architecture at a young age. His father was Head Architect of CMHC's Social Housing Program and his mother a prolific clothing designer. Jonathan grew up immersed in architectural debates, and design issues. Designing and building structures was therefore a natural extension of his skills. He studied Architecture and Industrial Design at Carleton University and University of Toronto. In 1980 he graduated with Honours Standing in his final year, the Steven Vaughn Scholarship and the George A Reid Scholarship from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Faculty of Product and Systems Design (OCAD). He worked with Kuypers, Adamson, Norton Ltd., a research, planning and design firm, for three years and in 1983 founded Crinion Associates Ltd. an Industrial Design consulting firm.

Crinion is the past Director of Communications for the Association of Canadian Industrial Designers. In 1986 Crinion’s Industrial Design work was recognized and exhibited by the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in an exhibition entitled ‘The Creative Spark’. His work has been selected many times for the International Design Magazine Annual Design Review Awards and for Virtu, an international design competition. Crinion Associates has received numerous awards including The Institute of Business Design (IBD) in New York in the Innovative Product Solutions Category and Toronto International Interior Designers Exposition (IIDEX), in the Innovative Product categories. In addition Crinion’s products have been awarded the prestigious ‘ Gold Best of Neocon’ a number of times at the international furniture fair in Chicago. In 1988 he took a one-year sabbatical to work with Lord Norman Foster at Foster Associates in London, England. This time out from his business served him well and eventually led to projects in Europe.

In 1994 Jonathan Crinion was chosen to be included in the International Design 40, a selection of the top 40 designers in the world chosen by International Design Magazine each year, thus becoming the only Canadian designer to receive this honour. In 1995 Crinion Associates received two prestigious Financial Post Design Effectiveness Awards, one for Best of Product Development and one for Best of Show for the companies work with Knoll International in New York.

Jonathan is Winner of the 1999 FX Design awards UK, Winner of the 1999 International Design Review - Best of Category and the Winner of the 2000 Toronto Arts Award for Design and Architecture. In 2002 he won the international D&AD Award for Outstanding Product Design in the UK. In 2004 he was the winner of the IIDEX International Show - Bronze, Silver and Gold awards for his designs and innovations in the work environment.

Jonathan is well known for his lectures on the design circuit at various schools and conferences around the world. Crinion’s designs have been placed on exhibit at venues around the world and most recently his work has been exhibited by the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, the Design Exchange, and at the World Design Conference. In 1997 the Governor General of Canada, Roméo Le Blanc presented Jonathan Crinion with the prestigious Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts designation (RCA) The Gazelle chair, which he designed in 1989 was recognized as a Canadian Design icon on a new Canadian postage stamp. Crinion was a member of the Chartered Society of Designers (MCSD) in London UK for 18 years.

PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE

Central to Crinion’s success is his belief that ‘less is more’ which is achieved through disciplined innovation involving material and process reduction. For over three decades Jonathan Crinion's work follows a common theme of innovation and material reduction. His resolved forms reflect frugality, often combining many functions into one simple part. For Jonathan, environmental consciousness is nothing new, having begun in earnest when he designed a solar hot water heating system for his design thesis while at OCAD. Now in his fifties, Jonathan’s designs are showing that they have a sense of quiet timelessness. This comes from the complex but restrained ideas he generates. He refrains from participation in the rabid consumerism that has gripped industry. His philosophy lies in complete opposition to needless proliferation of 'Designer products' with short life cycles, believing that 'the future of design lies in finding non material solutions'. His latest work begins to resolve the disparity between the corporate fight for limited global resources with designers contributing to the problem. Some of Jonathan’s many patents include an innovative wind turbine for domestic electrical production and the six meter long 'Open Table' now sold globally by Knoll. This revolutionary concept uses 1/6th of the material required for an office work station and also creates a new concept of collaborative work which is rapidly being adapted to the work environment world wide. The 'Open Table' concept developed by Crinion has impacted the global office work environment with virtually every major furniture manufacture now producing its own version of this massive workstation conceived by Crinion in 1986. The Open Table was ahead of it’s time, taking unrelenting perseverance to get the product to market. This long, clear span table reflects his philosophy by massively reducing the number and complexity of the parts required, and by providing eight work stations in a new way of working that is akin to sitting around a conference table.

Jonathan has designed and patented three wind turbines. His aim is to actively challenge reliance on the 'out of sight out of mind' nuclear and coal powered grid system that has created a legacy of deadly nuclear waste and pollution. His turbines are designed for single-family dwellings or cottages and with a smaller version for cruising yachts.

In 2004 Jonathan collaborated with Owen Clark Naval Architects in the UK to design and develop an ocean racing yacht to the new Class 40 rule developed in France. This lightweight yacht is powered by wind and solar energy and an environmental ethos. The yacht was used as an international media property to raise awareness about sustainable energy, design, environmental projects and concerns. Together with 'Friends of the Earth', a UK based environmental organization, the yacht promoted 'The Big Ask' campaign urging the UK government to commit annual CO2 reduction targets to law. Jonathan sailed the yacht from Cape Town, South Africa to the UK in 2006.