Alberta Inventors and Inventions - Furniture and Home Accessories

Our goal is a diverse and unique collection that challenges traditional furniture categories and creates new ones. Our philosophy lies within the individuality of our designers, and collectively our style emerges.—from Pure Design’s corporate statement

Pure Design got its start in 1994 with the most basic of home accessories, the CD rack. The Mantis, with its S-shaped, praying mantis-like elegance, has been a best-seller among the 50-plus designs the firm still markets. The rack holds 90 discs at an angle that enables their labels to be easily read.

At its peak, Pure Design was exporting 80 percent of its goods to shops in the United States, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom.

With the company having closed its manufacturing facility at the end of 2004 due to a weak Canadian dollar and the effects of lower-priced Asian furniture, a smaller Pure Design now markets its still-distinctive designs.

Pure Design is no stranger to the awards circuit both at home and abroad. In 2001, the company’s three founders—all graduates of the University of Alberta—were the recipients of the University of Alberta Alumni Association’s Horizon Award. In New York, their 2001 collection won the prestigious Editors’ Award for Furniture at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Likewise, the company’s influence has been recognized in curated shows as well as in books. In the summer of 2002, Pure Design was featured in the touring show, Habitat: Canadian Design Now curated by Helen Delacretaz of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The industrial work of co-founders Geoff Lilge, Dan Hlus and Randy McCoy was also recognized in the 2001 book, Design in Canada: From Tea kettles to Task Chairs by Rachel Gotlieb and Cora Golden, the first comprehensive examination of Canadian design.