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Stephen Burks: “Design must find ways to serve society and add value to our lives in meaningful ways.”


Portrait of product designer Stephen Burks standing in industrial space with sculpture titled Ancestors (Guardian)


Designer Stephen Burks was into the industry’s two big C-words—collaboration and craftsmanship—long before they were buzzy social media hashtags. Born in Chicago, Burks started his independent design career in 2000 when Italian manufacturer Cappellini put his first pieces into production and launched his name onto the global stage. Work with Missoni followed, and, in 2005, Burks went to South Africa, where he started collaborating with international artisans to design and produce the handcrafted furniture and accessories that became the hallmark of his holistic practice.


“We believe everyone is capable of design and continue to work to create more space for a pluralistic vision of design that is inclusive of all cultural perspectives,” says Burks, whose studio, Stephen Burks Man Made, is in Brooklyn. “Our practice is less about a style or fixed formal vocabulary and more about an expansive set of ideas.”



Detail of top of sculpture of metal triangles, Buddha, tuplips
Designer Stephen Burks sitting on stool holding mask over face with metal sculpture and African artifacts

Standing at 6 feet tall, Ancestors (Guardian) is made of Corten steel, glazed stoneware, and silicone rubber. The sculpture, completed in 2023, establishes self-transcendence as the starting point for Black resistance within the complex history of the African American experience.


Detail of hidden compartment in large metal sculpture



Channeling the transformative power of handcrafted objects in the face of our increasingly technology-dependent world, Burks doubles down on storytelling through design, drawing from personal experiences and the history, art, and culture he encounters in his travels. In addition to furniture and lighting—designed for his studio and other labels, including Dedon, Roche Bobois, and Living Divani—Burks has a roster of museum exhibitions and design gallery collaborations under his belt. Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place was on exhibit earlier this year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Burks became the first African American to receive the Collab Design Excellence Award. Additionally, he is the only African American to win the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Product Design and the only industrial designer awarded the prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. 


After nearly three decades in the industry, Burks has tapped into the importance of design at a deeper level. “At the start of my career, it was commonly understood that form follows function,” he says. “Today, form follows meaning. Design must find ways to serve society and add value to our lives in meaningful ways.”


Stephen Burks participated on the judging panel of the 7th annual GRAY Awards. This story originally appeared in GRAY magazine No. 70.

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