Look Ma, a design studio. We’ve seen them all, the big ones, the award-winning ones, the ultra cool urban ones, you name it.

The more I think about it, the more these design teams of two or more strikingly creative designers seem like today’s TV culture popstars and rock gods. Like the Central St. Martin alumni, Sam and Jude, who met in school and decided to start a design firm and sell their designs to independent stores in the United Kingdom. Before they knew it, they sold like hotcakes. Their designs were all over the news and their popularity grew on the Internet with design lovers. Soon they were looked upon as the new age design icons in the UK. They were called SUCK UK. Biography of a pop culture star. Not.

We take a look at the some of the best in the business. The names. The designs. The accolades. And the bragging rights.

366cm Switzerland

366cm was created by Sergio Streun and Vincent Schertenleib in 2004. Like the SUCK UK duo, 366cm’s Sergio and Vincent too, met in art school.

After they were done with schooling at ECAL (Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne) in Switzerland, these two young graduates went to London and Milan respectively to work and gain experience. Then came judgment day in April 2005, during the furniture fair in Milan, they presented a selection of their work, mainly recycled and redesigned objects, and became instant hits and favorites among their peers. They have been praised by multilingual and various design periodicals and online on many design related websites. All this started off from something we normal folks discard when we are done using, plastic phonecards. Sergio and Vincent came up with the brilliant idea of using these used phonecards as ashtrays. These ashtrays are what gave 366cm the ‘urban cool’ image and is one of their best sellers.

SUCK UK London, United Kingdom

Sam and Jude are creative minds behind the urban cool product and furniture designs that have been making news all over. Sir Terence Conran presented them with the ‘Most Innovative New Product’ award for their neon-lit coffee table design. In Jamie Oliver’s quest to change UK school dinners, he commissioned SUCK UK to design packaging - there is even a special ‘Thank You’ to the lads on the boxes – and they won the London Gift of the Year awards for two consecutive years running in 2002 and 2003. From humble beginnings working on a kitchen floor in North London to an empty room in a squatted embassy building in Primrose Hill, they are now based in an East End studio like proper designers.

These guys are our absolute favorites. Lookout for their growing list of new products on their website.

Another big record is the number of accolades that pour upon the work that comes out of the Fuseproject house. It has received more than 50 awards from IDSA/Business Week(Industrial Design Excellence Awards), ID Magazine and If Industrie Hanover. It was listed 2nd best design firm by Business Week and additionally Yves Behar is the recipient of the prestigious National Design Award for industrial design, awarded by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum.

The studio’s work has been internationally recognized by museums, including solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Musée de Design et d'Arts Appliqués Contemporains in Lausanne, Switzerland, as well as group shows in the Cooper Hewitt Museum NY, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum and the Munich Museum of Applied Arts.

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