Profile
Resin: Pouring the Foundations
In 1986 the three young designers began experimenting with clear polyester resin, a material more commonly used in industrial applications, and one now synonymous with the Dinosaur Designs identity. Resin provided the designers with the ability to produce multiples. Originally, all of the resin was cast in black and then handpainted, hiding the particular qualities of the resin. Before long they began to experiment with a seemingly endless range of colours, forms and patterns, virtually reinventing the medium as their interests shifted and evolved.
Figurative Form
Dinosaur Designs' early jewellery was highly figurative, featuring retro spaceships and robots, prehistoric creatures and tattoo-inspired motifs such as winged love hearts and mermaids. By 1989 the designers had begun to experiment with casting individual beads that could be threaded and assembled in numerous ways. Natural forms like rocks, shells and flowers inspired many of these beads. The figurative work continued through the early to mid 1990s, with whole ranges of products designed around particular themes or narratives including the seaside and the Garden of Eden.
Home Sweet Homewares
The Dinosaurs' expansion into designing homewares in 1990 was triggered by their own home making and the lack of available items that appealed to them personally. Homewares opened a whole new world of design possibilities for them. They could take a specific idea or theme and apply it across a multitude of functional objects - serving spoons, dishes, containers and so on - then produce them in a variety of vivid colours. The introduction of homewares also opened fresh markets for the company as the demand for big earrings and ornate jewellery began to wane.
Still life with Function
Olsen, Ormandy and Rossler have always designed in ranges or stories, and many of their objects appear most striking when grouped. Inspirations have come from art or nature: they have created ranges based on the forms of British sculptor Henry Moore, the abstract 'colourfield' paintings of Mark Rothko and more recently, their 'Drip' range has overt references to Jackson Pollock's mid-twentieth-century action painting. They have also developed ranges based on polished river stones, monumental rock formations, coral clusters and simple organic forms.
An Ongoing Process
Each prototype object is modelled three-dimensionally by hand, using a type of plasticine. The lack of perfectly straight lines and the unevenly finger-smoothed surface of any selected prototype is captured in a mould and then enhanced, as each object is cast. They are then drilled, sanded and finished by hand in the Sydney studio. Many prototypes are never cast and the process of experimentation and failure is key to the ongoing development of Dinosaur Designs' products. They continue to develop the designs that work, and drop those that do not - building and refining most ranges over many years. Now that a rock-solid foundation has been built over two decades in Australia, and with the collective strength the Dinosaurs continue to provide for one another, one feels that anything might be possible in the next phase of their development. Brian Parkes, Exhibition Curator, Object Gallery
