In addition to his industrial design projects, Ronan Bouroullec is also an artist, producing intricate drawings in which he repeats intuitive sequences of lines by hand with a Japanese felt tip brush. The contours of the new Courier desk, which Vitra developed in collaboration with Ronan, can be read as an expression of this artistic verve.
Courier is a testament to Ronan Bouroullec's flair for form and composition as well as his technical expertise: the desk effortlessly combines two high-quality materials, wood and aluminium, to create a distinctive yet unobtrusive whole. In Ronan's words: "I stripped everything down, until I got to something I like to call a naked solution - just a thin wooden surface on legs. Courier provides enough surface to hold a laptop, some papers, and a screen or books."
Courier thus joins George Nelson's Home Desk, Jean Prouvé's Compas Direction and Charles and Ray Eames's EDU in an illustrious line of aesthetically appealing objects that are both desk and sculpture. Viewed from the side, the desk's silhouette recalls a serif letter design - hence the name Courier, which is one of the best-known serif typefaces.