ABOUT OLIVIA LEE
Olivia Lee (b. 1985) is originally from Singapore. She graduated in 2008 with First class Honor from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. As a student, she represented her cohort in a branding workshop in LVMH House. Her graduation project, “Limited Edition Designer Dolls,” went viral, garnering her a guest illustrator role for ICON Magazine.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
After graduation, she worked as a designer for Sebastian Bergne. Here she created a collaboration with a diamond nano-engineering research under the NOBELINI scheme pioneered by the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre (UK).
Olivia served as the studio coordinator for the ICSID World Design Congress 2009 with the New York ARUP Foresight team. She was invited by the British Council (UK) to participate in their Milan Sketchbook project.
In 2011, Olivia transited from industrial design to the intricacies of designing industries at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). She managed two portfolios, developing the user insights and design sectors in Singapore, focusing on consumer-facing businesses. Olivia developed a deep appreciation for the socioeconomic and corporate context with which design, creativity, and innovation sit.
Olivia Lee founded her practice in 2013, fully committed to pushing boundaries in multiple disciplines.
Passionate about education, Olivia finds time outside professional practice to lecture at institutions such as the National University of Singapore’s (NUS), Division of Industrial Design, Singapore Polytechnic and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
She currently teaches History & Theory of Industrial Design and facilitates a luxury retail design platform at NUS.
Leee is the scenographer for Hermès, petit h 2019, and achieved the Her World Young Woman 2018 award.
THE ATHENA COLLECTION
The Athena Collection, by designer Olivia Lee, is an ode to the Contemporary Woman. The figures of intellect, fierce independence, and discerning standards. The collection references the ancient Greek goddess of knowledge and strategy, mistress of philosophy and craft, and patron of heroes. In our Age of Information, Athena is, by extension, a goddess of technology.
What would Athena make of the world we live in today, our adoration of new media or fetish with the Internet of Things? What new rituals and habits would she sanction?
The collection resists the urge to turn all objects into devices. It is a smart home concept that prioritizes materiality and reimagines analog objects for digital habits through simple twists, design interventions, and multiple functions.
THE STUDIO
OLIVIA LEE is a multidisciplinary studio grounded by an industrial design approach. The practice pivots from product to spatial design, research insights to ideation to create unique experiences. The studio focuses on uncovering new rituals and behaviors, navigating the tension between tradition and future, and bringing brands into unexplored territories through design and narrative.
The studio produced work for a variety of international partners such as AkzoNobel, The Balvenie, Samsung, Mathmos, Bank of Singapore, and the British Council. It has worked on briefs as complex as intergenerational smart homes for public housing, as whimsical as an ice-cream parlor installation for a natural stone company, and as functional as a compact indoor air purifier for the Asian market.
Olivia combines her experiences in London with her Singaporean roots to establish a culturally nuanced design practice in southeast Asia.
Her work has been presented at the Triennale di Milano, Museum fur Kommunikation Berlin, Maison et Object Observatoire de la Maison, Daikanyama T-Site, Mint Shop and featured in Wallpaper*, Icon, Dezeen, Axis, Intramuros, and Disegno.
