Kenneth Grange

Who is Kenneth Grange?

Sir Kenneth Henry Grange, CBE, MCSD, RDI is a British industrial designer.

Grange’s career began as a drafting assistant with the architect Jack Howe in the 1950s. His independent career started rather accidentally with commissions for exhibition stands, but by the early 1970s he was a founding-partner in Pentagram, the world-renowned interdisciplinary design consultancy.

Grange's career has spanned more than half a century, and many of his designs became – and are still – familiar items in the household or on the street. These designs include the first UK parking meters for Venner, food mixers for Kenwood, razors for Wilkinson Sword, cameras for Kodak, typewriters for Imperial, clothes irons for Morphy Richards, cigarette lighters for Ronson, washing machines for Bendix, and pens for Parker. He was also responsible for the aerodynamics, interior layout and exterior styling of the nose cone of British Rail's famous High Speed Train and also involved in the design of the innovative 1997 TX1 version of the famous London taxi-cab. He has carried out many commissions for Japanese companies.

One quality of much of Grange’s design work is that it is not based on just the styling of a product. His design concepts arise from a fundamental reassessment of the purpose, function and use of the product. He has also said that his attitude to designing any product is that he wants it to be "a pleasure to use". Grange was a pioneer of user-centred design, in seeking to eliminate what he sees as the "contradictions" inherent in products that fail to embody ease-of-use.