Michael Anastassiades is a Cypriot designer based in London. He founded his studio in 1994 followed by his eponymous brand in 2007. Working across lighting, furniture, objects and spatial design, his designs are most notable for their honest use of materials, familiarity of form and clarity of function. They are at once disciplined and obsessive with a playfulness that inspires a vitality once might not expect.
Michael Anastassiades trained as a civil engineer at London’s Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine before taking a masters degree in industrial design at the Royal College of Art. The studio has designed products with various manufacturers including FLOS, B&B Italia, Herman Miller, Alessi, Cassina, Karakter, Kettal, Molteni, Gebrüder Thonet Vienna, Roda, Salvatori, Svenkst Tenn, Sigmar London, Aboutwater by Fantini, Bang & Olufsen, Koyori, Puiforcat, Valextra, Mutina, Shihara and Lobmeyr. He has designed signature limited edition collections for ICA Gallery, Milan, Nilufar Gallery, Milan, Dansk Mobelkunst, Copenhagen, Andreas Murkudis, Berlin and Taka Ishii Gallery, Japan.
His work is featured in permanent collections at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the MAK in Vienna, the Crafts Council in London and the FRAC Centre in Orleans France. His solo exhibitions include Norfolk House music room at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (2010); Cyprus Presidency at the European Parliament in Brussels Belgium (2011); “Time and Again at the Geymüllerschlössel”, MAK, Vienna (2012); “To Be Perfectly Frank”, Svenskt Tenn, Stockholm (2013); “Reload the Current Page”, Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia (2014), “Doings on Time and Light”, Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul (2015), “13 Mobiles”, Atelier Jesper, Belgium (2017), “Things That Go Together”, NiMAC, Nicosia (2019), “Silver Tongued’, SHOP Taka Ishii, Hong Kong (2019). He has curated and designed the exhibition “Showroom Wiener Werkstätte – A Dialogue with Michael Anastassiades” for the MAK, Vienna, 2021.
In 2015, Anastassiades received the Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) award from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in recognition of outstanding contribution to design and society. He has gone on to win the Designer of the Year award for Elle Decoration International Design Awards (2019), The Design Prize (2019), Maison&Objet (2020) and ADI Compasso d’Oro Award (2020). In 2024, he received an OBE from King Charles III for services to design.