Josh Owen

Who is Josh Owen?

Josh Owen is an American industrial designer and educator. He graduated from Cornell University in 1994 with a B.F.A. in sculpture and a B.A. in visual studies. In 1997 he received an M.F.A. in furniture design from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Owen is currently a Professor of Industrial Design at The Rochester Institute of Technology. He previously taught at Philadelphia University where he held The Craig R. Benson Chair for Innovation. He also teaches a product design course at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. He is the founder of Josh Owen LLC. His professional projects are produced by major international manufacturers including Areaware, Casamania, Kontextur, Kikkerland and Umbra.

He has been the winner of six Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Awards, the International Design Award, and has received honorable mentions for the ID Annual Design Review and the Red Dot Design Award. Owen is the author of the book Big Ideas / Small Packages. His work is included in the permanent design collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Denver Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Chicago Athenaeum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. His work has been featured in major exhibitions, numerous books on design, and is regularly included in critical design discourse.