10 to Watch: Mark McKenna

Design Director
Humanscale
www.mmckenna.com

Life has a funny way of coming full circle. From his humble beginnings on a farm, Humanscale’s Design Director Mark McKenna went on to study industrial design in his home state of Illinois before heading off to Europe to continue his education at the University of Northumbria in England and the Ingo Maurer Studio in Germany. He eventually returned to the States, where he received a patent for his senior thesis project—a machine that automates sandbag production for flood control—and designed John Deere farm equipment at Henry Dreyfus Associates. Circle complete.

The ambitious designer opened his own design studio, mmckenna LLC, in 2002, and has been the design director at Humanscale since 2009. His commitment to and passion for design stem from the respect he has for two of his mentors, Niels Diffrient and Ingo Maurer. “What I have taken from them is an absolute dedication to their work. These are people who live to create,” he says. “I try to be the same.”

His work with Humanscale to develop a lighting concept called “Halo,” launched last year at ICFF, pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with technology, essentially powering the fixture with radio waves when disconnected from the wall with no need for batteries. This out-of-the-box thinking is what places him in the vanguard of designers to watch.

“It is about unlocking human potential, or … identifying barriers to productivity. When enough barriers are eliminated, individuals are able to operate at their own pace—not the one imposed by their equipment,” he says. We concur.