Draft:Cory Grosser

Cory Grosser (born 1975) is an American industrial designer and interior architect based in Pasadena, California. Known for a minimalist style of design that he calls Happy Minimalism (TM), Grosser’s multidisciplinary design studio, Cory Grosser + Associates, has worked with a range of European brands and clients such as Bernhardt Design and The Walt Disney Company.

Early Life and Education
Grosser was born in Rochester, New York in 1975. He had an "All American" upbringing and played on his high school football team. Grosser earned an Architecture degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo then moved to Los Angeles, California to attend the ArtCenter College of Design. He earned a second degree in Environmental Product Design in 2001.

Career
Grosser’s first big break came with his debut at Salone di Mobile Milan Furniture Fair in 2002 and he formed his design studio in the same year. Since then, he has gone on to complete projects for Agape, Bentley Motors, Bernhardt Design, BuzziSpace, Coalesse / Steelcase,, Cumberland, Frighetto, Johanson Design, MDF Italia, Mogg, SupplyFrame Design Lab, SpHaus, The Walt Disney Company, the World Wildlife Fund and more.

While running a multidisciplinary design studio, Grosser has worked on a wide-range of projects from furniture and product design, to environmental design, and branding. Notable designs include the BuzziShroom acoustic floor light for Buzzispace (2024), Mulholland Chair (2022), the Automatic Chair (2021) and the Astra Chair (2019) for Bernhardt Design, and the Airline 009 Chair for The Walt Disney Company (2009).

Awards and Exhibitions
Grosser won the HIP Award for Product Designer of the Year from Interior Design Magazine in 2022. He was a HIP honoree for Lighting in 2024 for BuzziShroom and won another HIP Award in 2017 for BuzziMood. Previous awards include: NYC x Design Award Honoree for Mulholland Chair in 2022, an IIDA Calibre Design Award for his work at SupplyFrame Design Lab in 2017, and the Cristalplant Design Competition for Slide towel shelf in 2014. Grosser won Best of Neocon Silver Award for CG_Table in 2011 and the ID Magazine Design Review Award for Gradient Collection in 2006. His work has been shown in exhibitions around the world such as Salone del Mobile Milan Furniture Fair, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City, and NeoCon in Chicago.

Publications
His work has been featured in several publications and media outlets worldwide including Surface Magazine, who named him one of the “Top Avant-Garde Designers in America” in 2003. He has since been interviewed on The BOM, Clever Podcast and he appeared in the television series America ByDesign which was syndicated nationwide in 2024.

Grosser appeared in book The Other Office Three published by Frame in 2018 and The Hand of The Designer published by Moleskine in 2010. He is also in the 2007 Italian publication Avverati A Dream Come True which was created by several people at SaloneSatellite.

Academic Career
Grosser is a faculty member of ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California where he teaches graduate-level furniture design and spacial branding courses along with studios sponsored by large brands like Haworth. His teaching career and his studio practice are similar in theory and he has given talks and lectures about design.

He has served as a judge in several design competitions over the years. Grosser is a member of Be Original Americas and was a juror for the inaugural Next Generation of Originality Award in 2024. He was also a juror at the Good Design Awards in 2019 and the Spark awards in 2009.