Mario Ruiz

Background

Born in 1965 in Alicante, Spain, Mario Ruiz graduated in Industrial Design from Barcelona's Elisava school. He started his independent career in 1995, opening his studio Mario Ruiz Design in Barcelona, focused on industrial products and technology as well as furniture, lighting and office projects. From 1992 until 2002 he taught industrial projects at the EINA and Elisava design schools.

Signature Style

His designs are known for their simplicity: they live with their users without being conspicuous. Ruiz describes his method as originating from the mission of being useful — first making the object work, with the details eventually producing a language. He favours silent shapes and carefully considered objects built with the minimum number of parts.

Notable Works

He has worked for more than 120 companies, including Siemens, Steelcase, Teknion, Offecct, Lapalma, Arflex, Haworth, Expormim, HBF, Casala and Gandia Blasco. Key projects include the Flat outdoor programme for Gandia Blasco (Wallpaper* Design Award 2008, Red Dot 2010), the Dis Confident office chair for Dynamobel, the Stockholm programme for Punt and the Haiku chair for Offecct.

Legacy

With more than 50 awards, including Red Dot, iF, Best of NeoCon and ADI-FAD Delta awards, Ruiz received Spain's National Design Prize in 2016. Solo exhibitions of his work were held at the Instituto Cervantes in Milan and Feria Hábitat Valencia in 2018.