Hlynur V. Atlason is the Founder and Creative Director of Atlason Design Studio; a strategic innovation and studio based in New York City. He was born in Iceland, in 1974. Atlason designs consumer products, furniture and packaging for companies that range from startups to large multinationals.

Hlynur Atlason became a designer almost by accident. “I didn't understand the profession existed until I was in my 20s,” he says. There were no design schools at the time in his native Iceland. “You could study to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or you could go into the trades market,” recalls Atlason, who comes from a long line of lawyers. “These were really the options.”

He wound up studying political science at the Sorbonne and by chance was invited to an open house at Parsons Paris, a branch of the New York school. “There were all these people doing these really interesting things in art,” he says. “I was like, ‘Let’s do this!’”

He gravitated toward product and furniture design, and that required a transfer to Parsons New York. “When I started studying,” he recalls, “I was just completely taken over by this stuff.” After graduation, he stayed in New York and, in 2004, founded his eponymous design studio, which has since designed kitchen utensils, beverage bottles, airline serviceware, cosmetics packaging and furniture.

“I’m most excited about items you can discover over time or have a longer relationship with and get some delight out of.”

Atlason grew up tinkering with bicycles and became a national cycling champion in Iceland. “As a kid, I was always putting together bicycles. I would mix up and make different bikes and do all sorts of nonsense.” That passion extended to motorcycles and, beginning in 2006, motorcycle racing and motocross. “It’s family, design and motorcycles. So all of it fits,” says Atlason, a father of two whose first name is Icelandic for “maple tree.”

“I think there’s a fairly sort of pure aesthetic to most things I do. I’m not much for embellishments or thrills and things like that. And I think it just comes out of – not a Nordic style – just a mentality. I don’t know what it is. It just comes natural in that way. That’s what feels right.”

Atlason Design Studio has the philosophy where they have always asked themselves where their job begins and ends. There is a huge responsibility involved in designing and making new products. Design is generally conceived as a way of creating objects that make our lives more beautiful, convenient and comfortable.

They believe this is the challenge of our time: to imagine, design and motivate corporations and individuals to participate in a new way to create, deliver and access the goods we all need. And that is also where today’s opportunity exists: to develop new types of products and businesses that will point us towards and shape a better future for everyone