Konstantin Grcic, the Munich designer, is one of the most important exponents of contemporary industrial design.

In her designs, Ruth Gurvich aims to show the shapes and structures of everyday things the way they are. Her understanding of design is global in scope, but firmly anchored in local tradition.

Her designs combine new technological achievements with the uniqueness and importance that only handmade historic objects possess.

From the start, his projects have focused on interactive media within a spatial context.

The Brazilian designer, Gustavo Lins, was born in Belo Horizonte in 1961. On completing his architectural studies in Minais Gerais and Barcelona, Lins settled in Paris at the beginning of the 1990s. There he caused a stir with unusual designs for Agnès B, Jean-Paul Gaultier, John Galliano, Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

His designs focus less on personal style and more on the attempt to "grasp and analyse the essence of the product commissioned and to bundle it in the design".

Ted Muehling was born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1953 and studied industrial design at the Pratt Institute in New York. Muehling has been designing jewellery and objects inspired by natural shapes since 1976.

Born in 1962 in Hochdorf, Switzerland, into a family of craftsmen, jewellery designer Patrik Muff grew up in a highly creative environment, surrounded by hammers, nails and saws.

Khashayar Naimanan, born in 1976 in London, commenced his career as a graffiti sprayer and photographer at the age of 15. He studied product design at the London Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and then at the Royal College of Art.

Clemens Weisshaar was born in 1977 in Munich. After an apprenticeship as a metalworker, he studied product design at the London Saint Martins College of Art and Design and at the Royal College of Art and was an assistant to Konstantin Grcic for three years before founding his first office for design 2000.

Conceptual artist and designer Rolf Sachs is recognized for his distinctive, multidisciplinary approach. His work moves freely between art and design and is renowned for surprising audiences – encouraging them to question preconceptions and view objects from a different perspective.

When Christoph Keller took over the "Stählemühle" estate by Lake Constance in 2004 after a successful career as an art publisher and discovered an old distillery there, he had no idea that just a few years later he would be considered one of the 10 best distillers in the world by Gault Millau.