Inimfon “Ini” Joshua Archibong (born 23 June 1983) is an industrial designer,

creative director A creative director (or creative supervisor) is a person who makes high-level creative decisions and, with those decisions, oversees the creation of creative assets such as advertisements, products, events, or logos. Creative director positions ar ...

, artist and musician who is active in

product design Product design as a verb is to create a new Product (business), product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is ...

furniture design Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). ...

environmental design Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. It seeks to create spaces that will enhance the natural, social, cultural and physical environm ...

, architecture,

watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached ...

design, and

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fash ...

. He has said about the relationship between art and design " e idea that something has to be useless in order to be art is something I reject." Archibong's work reflects an interest in master-craftsmanship and its relationship to modern and ancient technology. It is inspired by the study of architecture, environmental and product design, as well as mathematics, philosophy and world religions. His clients include brands such as

Hermès Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès ( , ), is a French luxury design house established in 1837. It specializes in leather goods, lifestyle accessories, home furnishings, perfumery, jewelry, watches and ready-to-wear. Its logo, since ...

, Knoll, de Sede, Bernhardt Design, Sé. and

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...

. Archibong lives and works in

Neuchâtel Neuchâtel (, , ; german: Neuenburg) is the capital of the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, situated on the shoreline of Lake Neuchâtel. Since the fusion in 2021 of the municipalities of Neuchâtel, Corcelles-Cormondrèche, Peseux, and Valangin, ...

, Switzerland.

Early life and education

The son of Nigerian parents who emigrated to the United States as academic scholars, Archibong was born in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

, California. He attended and graduated from the Polytechnic School, then briefly attended the USC business school, and subsequently enrolled at

ArtCenter College of Design Art Center College of Design (stylized as ArtCenter College of Design) is a private art college in Pasadena, California. History ArtCenter College of Design was founded in 1930 in downtown Los Angeles as the Art Center School. In 1935, Fred ...

, from which he received a degree in Environmental Design. He was both an Edwards Endowed Scholar and an Outreach Grant recipient. After graduation, he joined Tim Kobe's Eight Inc. in Singapore, before continuing his studies at the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), where he earned a master's of advanced studies in Design for Luxury and Craftsmanship. He is the younger brother of Olympic athlete

Koko Archibong Aniekan Okon “Koko” Archibong (born May 10, 1981) is a former Nigerian-American professional basketball player. At a height of tall, he played at the small forward position. Early life and education Koko Archibong was born as Aniekan Okon ...

Career

In addition to his artwork and design practice, Archibong has taught at several design institutions and is a visiting professor at his alma mater ECAL, and has also taught at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne and the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in th ...

in Singapore. He has also lectured and spoken internationally including at the

College Art Association The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

conference,

USC School of Architecture The USC School of Architecture is the architecture school at the University of Southern California. Located in Los Angeles, California, it is one of the university's twenty-two professional schools, offering both Undergraduate education, undergrad ...

, and in Dubai and Design Indaba in Cape Town. In 2019, along with business development collaborations with Benjamin de Haan, Archibong founded L.M.N.O. CREATIVE, a multi-disciplinary design collective. The collective includes fellow graduates from Pasadena's ArtCenter, Jori Brown and Maxwell Engelmann, as well as designer Ebony Lerandy, who studied under Archibong at ECAL.

Awards and exhibitions

Archibong's work has been exhibited at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

(V&A) in London, Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery in Pasadena, Galerie Triode in Paris, the

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi The Bagatti Valsecchi Museum is a historic house museum in the Montenapoleone districof downtown Milan, northern Italy. The Bagatti Valsecchi Museum's permanent collections principally contain Italian Renaissance decorative arts (such as maiolic ...

in Milan, Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan, Design Indaba in Cape Town, the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generate ...

in London. In 2020, Archibong began working on the creation of sculptural pieces for a solo exhibition at the Friedman Benda Gallery in New York. He is the recipient of the ICFF Studio Award, Best of NeoCon Silver, International Woodworking Fair's Design Emphasis Award, ICFF's American Student Designer of the Year Award, and the 2019 Elle Deco American Design Award. In 2019, he received Distinguished Alumni awards from both ArtCenter and Polytechnic in his hometown of Pasadena. His design for a Pavilion of the African Diaspora (PoAD) won the Best Design Medal at the London Design Biennale in June 2021 at

Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ( ...

. In 2021 the Metropolitain Museum of Art (MET) in New York acquired three of his designs for its Afrofuturist Period Room. In 2022 the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 196 ...

(LACMA) added his "Switch" table to its permanent collection.

Writing

The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

published an essay by Archibong titled "Ini Archibong: What We Believe About Storytelling" in 2021. The essay is part of a series called ''The Big Ideas: What Do We Believe'', which also includes essays by

Agnes Callard Agnes Callard (born Agnes Gellen; January 6, 1976) is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on pub ...

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak Elo rating system, rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the hi ...

, T.M. Luhrmann,

Harry Reid Harry Mason Reid Jr. (; December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Nevada from 1987 to 2017. He led the Senate Democratic Caucus from 2005 to 2017 and was the Sena ...

, and

Carlo Rovelli Carlo Rovelli (born May 3, 1956) is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy, the United States and, since 2000, in France. He is also currently a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute, and c ...

, amongst others.

Publications

* ''Speechless: different by design''. Schleuning, Sarah (2019). Dallas Museum of Art, High Museum of Art. Shapco Printing, Dallas, Texas. . . * ''The ECAL manual of style: how to best teach design today?''.

Jonathan Olivares Jonathan Olivares (born 1981) is an American industrial designer and author. Olivares's approach to design has been characterized research-based and incremental. In April 2022 he became Senior Vice-President of Design at the Knoll (company), Knol ...

, Alexis Georgacopoulos (2022).

Phaidon Press Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional o ...

, London. . . * ''Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.'' Ian Alteveer, Hannah Beachler, Sarah E. Lawrence, (2022). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. * ''Question everything: a Stone reader''. Peter Catapano, Simon Critchley (2022). Liveright, New York. . .

References

External links

Design by INI
(Official site) {{DEFAULTSORT:Archibong, Ini Living people 1983 births Art Center College of Design alumni Artists from Los Angeles People from Pasadena, California American designers American people of Nigerian descent Furniture designers Industrial designers Designers Neuchâtel American furniture designers