Emme Italia draws attention to itself after a 20-year development in the back office trade. The new e-commerce website www.designforyou.it and its entry into office and retail trade are the latest steps of the steady progress of a brand, that keeps its craft identity. Alessandro Barison, design manager at Emme Italia, tells us the history of this company.
After dealing with the leading restoration workshops and museum archives in the world and the studios of architects and creative people, the Italian brand Emme Italia is now more and more visible through the project of a design-oriented small-sized enterprise awarded at the 2009 Eindhoven Dutch Design Week as one of the top five in Europe.
It was established by Maurizio Barison in 1995, when the advent of the CAD caused the collapse of the drafting machine industry.
But it was his son Alessandro – graduate at Scuola di Design in Padua- who, a few years later, changed the once machine shop into a design brand supplying customized products and addressed to “creative people” :
As though a 20° anniversary celebration of the company, the Draftech drawers were chosen and displayed in large size at Triennale di Milano, to contain original drafts by some of the most important Italian architects, on the occasion of the exhibition “Comunità Italia. Architettura, città e paesaggio dal dopoguerra al Duemila”.
Marked by a rigorous industrial design, the furniture offered by Emme Italia can be found at startuppers’, coworking spaces – for instance Jamko in Milan– and workplaces all of them featuring a minimal look.
Through the e-commerce site, the supply expands with new office collections, that include sitting-standing desks and fitting-out products for shops. From the workshop to the office and through to retail trade.
