Umemi - Reykjavík, Iceland

I was born in Iceland in 1981. I grew up in a small town by the ocean in the southwest of Iceland. I come from a family of musicians so at age five I started my music career playing the recorder and later the piano and violin. I loved music and still do but my love for unique objects was stronger.

I started collecting everything I could get my hands on from napkins to erasers. If I got a piece of candy in nice packaging, I would keep it for years just because it looked nice. All these little things I collected were my jewels and I still have most of them today.

I always knew I wanted to create something but product design first came to mind at a show in Reykjavik ‘99 featuring Mark Newson, Jasper Morisson and Michael Young. I figured I could be creating my own precious objects that would hopefully affect other people in the same way my collections of things affected me.