Designer Desire: Gino Colombini

Montage of Gino Colombini designs

It was only last week when we bought a vintage bright orange plastic waste paper basket that we learned anything about Gino Colombini.

Gino Colombini (1915-2011) was an Italian product designer who worked primarily in plastic. From 1933 to 1952, he worked in the Milan practice of the architect and designer, Franco Albini. Together, they co-designed the rattan ‘Margherita’ chair in 1951. From 1953 until 1960, Colombini was the first technical director of Kartell for whom he created many domestic products including the waste paper basket that we bought.

His designs are featured in the book Kartell: The Culture of Plastics published by Taschen in 2013.

Colombini won the Compasso d’Oro award on five occasions; 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960. The Museum of Modern Art in New York have a number of his designs in their permanent collection.

Our orange bin will shortly be for sale in our space at Valley Antiques in Hebden Bridge. However, if you can’t get over to West Yorkshire, you can often find examples of his products on 1stDibs, Bukowskis and Etsy.

Portrait of Gino Colombinicredit

Additional image credits:
Bukowskis | Pinterest