Rock Solid: Seven Lessons Over 40 Years With Dinosaur Designs

Since meeting on their first day at the City Art Institute of Sydney (now UNSW Art & Design) in their early twenties, Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy – partners in life and business – have built one of Australia’s most iconic brands. It all began at Sydney’s Paddington Markets in 1985, where the pair sold jewellery made from Fimo polymer clay to help fund their art practice.

Four decades on, Dinosaur Designs is a global name with seven stores across Australia, and outposts in New York and London, alongside stockists such as Net-a-Porter, Bergdorf Goodman, Liberty, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. Its sculptural resin jewellery found early fans in Kylie Minogue, Carolina Herrera and Christy Turlington, the latter of whom famously wore a stack of Dinosaur Design bangles in British Vogue in the early ’90s.

Olsen and Ormandy have created a distinct aesthetic, collaborating with luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton on a limited-edition resin chess set and exhibiting their work at leading galleries including London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Perhaps most impressive is the duo’s five-level Redfern studio in Sydney (not open to the public), where every bangle and bowl is still made in-house by hand. A production team mixes pigments and pours resin into moulds, and each piece is sanded and finished on custom machinery designed by Ormandy.

Dino is a design story decades in the making (and one that continues a legacy: Olsen’s parents are the artists John Olsen and Valerie Marshall Strong Olsen). It’s fitting that its 40th anniversary collection is named Rock – a nod to the natural forms that have inspired the duo’s work, and the solidity and longevity of their business.

Here, Olsen and Ormandy take a trip down memory lane, reflecting on 40 years of working together, reinventing resin and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Expect things to go awry… and roll with it

Ormandy: What you learn is the ability to deal with things as they come up. Inevitably, you are working towards an idea or an outcome and there are roadblocks that pop up that completely make you rethink your direction.

Olsen: You’ve got to be malleable, flexible and understand what you’re dealing with in order to make good decisions … To be celebrating 40 years and the journey that’s come with it is something we’re proud of.  There are so many ups and downs in business, but it’s important to keep moving forward and embrace the learnings that come with it.

Let go (and have a laugh)

Olsen: For us, working together as business and personal partners is a way of life. There’s no clear definition between work and life – it’s a creative way of living where work, business, studio and personal life blend into one.  

Communication, having a good sense of humour and having fun with it all are key ingredients, and knowing when to let things go, and moving forward, not hanging on to things. We have a lot of fun. In a way there’s no time to get bogged down in any issues because there’s so much going on around us. An on and off button would be nice – we’ve been looking for that for years, but we just … have a good laugh and let go.

Curiosity is non-negotiable 

Ormandy: There was a certain rawness when we first started and now it’s a little more refined and sophisticated. We still keep discovering more about the materials we work with; it’s never-ending and there’s constant curiosity and evolution.

Olsen: Every collection is important to us; it tells a story and informs the next. It’s a constant evolution where new discoveries and learnings are made along the way. Creating our work in Sydney brings a sense of discovery to the making of every piece.

We take inspiration from nature, colour and materialities to create collections that stay true to our DNA while pushing boundaries into new areas of experimentation.

Risk equals reward

Olsen: Opening our first store in Australia in the Strand Arcade, and stores internationally in New York and London, was a courageous move that gave us greater bricks-and-mortar exposure to a global audience. You’ve got to take risks to move forward.

Collaboration is inspiration

Olsen: Romance Was Born and Designer Rugs were fabulous collaborations. Romance Was Born was a collection called Cooee. It was a wonderful collaboration all about the nature of the Australian bush, all [in the shape of] gum nuts.

We’ve undertaken special commissions over the years … some of which include a unique chess set commissioned by Louis Vuitton in 2005, and a mobile for Tokyo Designers Block, exhibited at Idée. We were also commissioned to create a T-shirt for the events.

Mistakes can be a gift

Olsen: Sometimes a mistake can end up being, “Oh wow that’s going well, let’s keep going with that.” And if you’re not there on the ground you miss out on all. This is part of the beauty of the handmade nature of what we create locally in our Sydney studio.

Sometimes [there’s] a particular type of casting we’re trying to achieve and it doesn’t come out properly. Resin is an unpredictable substance, sometimes the mistakes end up being the best thing.

Ormandy: For the next chapter of Dinosaur Designs we want to continue to keep exploring and creating, keeping the adventure alive.

Tap into an Australian sensibility

Olsen: When we first started no one was doing homewares in resin … [it] wasn’t a material widely used. We invented all the machinery we use. Now there are resin homewares manufactured all over the world, but they lack the handmade touch and tactility a Dinosaur Designs piece comes with. The tactility of our pieces really resonates with people. [They] are drawn to the fluidity of resin, the way we hand mix pigments to create unique colours, and the inspiration which is drawn from nature, the sea, sun and earth.

You realise how much of Australia has rubbed off on what we do. We really notice that when we’re travelling and you see the pieces in different places around the world. There is something about the colour and form that feels like Australia. Often in New York and London we get homesick Australians coming in because it feels like home.

 dinosaurdesigns.com.au