Extract

The young man in the photo stares back at us. He sits at a table, his chin in his right hand, head tilted slightly so that a shadow is cast over the right side of his face. It makes his left side appear all the brighter. A metal object lies on the table before him, as if forgotten. What a self-confident image!

When the photo was published in an advertisement for German fittings manufacturer FSB Franz Schneider Brakel, Jasper Morrison was just thirty years old and the world barely knew him. The metal object on the table is his first industry order, the FSB 1144 door handle. And yet in the photo he looks self-assured, as if he already knew the successful career ahead of him as a furniture and product designer.

The ad agency must have sensed it, too, because they attribute a confident statement to the serious designer in the picture: ‘I hope you like it, what’s more I hope you buy it!’ And make the man the central focus of the ad, with information about the product and the manufacturer’s logo right at the bottom in tiny lettering.

FSB presents Jasper Morrison’s design in spring 1990 as a new product at the International Hardware Fair in Cologne. The 1144 is made of aluminium and comprises an entire product collection.

In addition to the door handle, there is also a window handle, narrow-stile door handle, a doorstop for walls and one for floors, a hat and coat hook, and a doorknob and cabinet knob.

Jasper Morrison gave the handle two faces: the front is shaped like a wedge, while the grip section stretches to a broad, flat rounded end – depending on how you look at it when it is turned, either one view or the other comes to the fore. And yet the design has a harmonious look, thanks to the cleanly entwined lines and surfaces that transition seamlessly into the other and lend the handle a striking effect.

The FSB 1144 collection quickly proves a success: in 1991 it wins the Staatspreis of the German federal state of North Rhine–Westphalia and in 1992 the German Product Design Award. That same year, the Hanover Industry Forum lauds it as one of the top ten products of the year; the award is presented by the Minister President of Lower Saxony at the time and future German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder.

The German financial newspaper Handelsblatt writes of the commendation: ‘an authoritative design of the best modern provenance... that has every hope of breaking out of the small circle of design freaks into the hearts of the masses.’ The design is also well received internationally: in February 1991 a four-column article appears in the London Times, describing the collaboration with FSB in detail under the headline ‘A door handle on the future’.

Italian architecture and design magazine Domus presents the 1144 product collection in summer 1992. British journalist and design expert Alice Rawsthorn deems the design a classic just five years after its launch.