Roger Swales

Roger Swales | GRO design

Roger Swales was born in Shropshire, England in 1966. He founded GRO design in 1999 together with fellow British designers Roland Bird and Graham Hinde. For over a decade GRO has worked for industry leaders and A-brand clients across a broad spectrum of markets. These include Nokia, Microsoft, LGE, Samsung, Panasonic, Philips, Beats Dr Dre, Haier, Denon, Masterfoods, Océ, Unilever, Denon, Toto, Grohe, Dorel, NXT and Sara Lee.

Before co-founding GRO, Swales first studied 3D design at Bristol Polytechnic, winning the 1987 Royal Society of Arts Design Bursary for Small Electrical Goods, and then went to work for Pentagram (London) and Philips Design (Netherlands). Notable projects included Philips Alessi (1994), for which he designed the water kettle and the citrus press concept, winning the Kho Liang Design Award. He also contributed to Vision of the Future (1995), which won a Gold IDEA.

Swales served as a judge at the iF Product Design Awards in 2010 and at the Hong Kong Exporters’ Associate Adjudication and Forum in 2012.

“Simple, iconic sketches continue to fascinate me. Sketching is powerful, as it allows a designer to visually think and freely explore. The way a line is drawn contains a spirit, energy, balance, personality and soul.”