DESIGN TALK: GRUPA

Design talk means it’s time to meet the faces behind a brand. Today, we’d like you to get to know Filip Despot, Ivana Pavic and Tihana Taraba, the founders of GRUPA, a Croatian design studio based in Zagreb. The brand manufactures quality, handmade products with a particular focus on lighting design.

After a successful decade of dreaming up award-winning products, GRUPA decided to manufacture their own products, building lamps that reflect their unique approach to craftsmanship and art. “Our ili ili lamp is to blame,” the team says, “we developed the prototype and before we knew it, a big architectural bureau wanted to put it in 500 hotel rooms. That was the moment that pushed us to the other side of the design desk and into the factory, and that was how we wanted to make all of our future products.”

Their collections are defined by simplicity, a complex, sleek agility and a monochromatic colour scheme.

ILI ILI LAMP

The people behind GRUPA know that light affects people in numerous ways, which is why they design not just how their lights look and function, but how they feel, too: how a given lamp disperses light, and even the sensation it evokes when touched.

“Simple is our favourite challenge.”

A painstaking attention to detail guides GRUPA in every design process: “Most of our products have certain parts that had to be designed from scratch. There were no commercial dimmers that could match the Baluna design, so we had to create one. How to hide a cable from sight on an adjustable ceiling lamp?”

ARIGATO LAMP

On DECOVRY, we feature a varied collection of the design & manufacture label’s lights, from the double-bulb ceiling fixtures of the Arigato line, the modular, customizable ili_ili collection; minimal, airy floor lamps to table or wall-fixed lighting; all designed and hand-assembled in Croatia by the GRUPA team.