Zero
Sweden

Is it possible to create new design? Yes it is, if you think and are inspired by your heart. Our hearts have grown up in the gloomy darkness of the Scandinavian winter and in the brilliant sunshine of the Scandinavian summer. A double life that involves us in a complicated love affair with light and shadow, darkness and shape. This double life creates a fantastic seed bed for functional design, combined with emotion. 

When Zero was set up in 1978, the founders had long experience - of glass. This experience lead them to leave glass for a while - then return - and start to make lampshades from sheet metal instead. Börge Lindau, the designer, was attracted by the daring idea and began a long-term involvement.

Considering their limited resources, they felt that the choice of material for the first lamps was very important, so that the lamps would be perceived as being new, and attract publicity for their innovative design. So he suggested that a suitable material would be perforated sheet metal, and the decision was made. The choice of material then achieved such a success that for the first ten years, almost all the product range consisted of lampshades of all shapes and sizes, made from a variety of types of perforated sheet metal.

Slowly but surely, Zero began to expand and they moved their operations from the garage where they started up, to an industrial unit in central Nybro. There was plenty of space for the company here which, after a few years, began to grow at an increasing rate. When Börge Linday phased out his involvement to devote time to Blå Station, his own furniture company, Zero initiated their long-term and fruitful collaboration with another designer, Per Sundstedt. He then got tired of sheet metal and wanted to start designing glass lampshades. The time was right, and Zero's product range whas for several years dominated by various glass lampshades, many designed by Per Sundstedt. Zero now work with some of the foremost Scandinavian designers such as Thomas Bernstrand, Mattias Ståhlbom, Fredrik Mattson, the Front design group, Mia Gammelgaard, Jens Fager, Monica Förster etc.