Richard Sapper was born in Munich and is now based in Milan, Italy. He graduated from University of Munich and he is considered one of the most important designers of his generation. His products typically featuring a combination of technical innovation, simplicity of form and an element of wit and surprise.

Richard Sapper received numerous international design awards, including 10 prestigious Compasso d’Oro awards and the Raymond Loewy Foundation’s Lucky Strike award. His designs are part of the permanent collections of many museums around the world, with over 15 designs represented at New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), as well as London’s Victoria and Albert and Design Museums.

Sapper taught and lectured at Yale University, the Kunstakademie Stuttgart, the University of Beijing, the Royal College of Art in London, the Domus Academy in Milan, the University of Buenos Aires, and the Hochschule fuer Angewandte Kunst in Vienna. Sapper was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England and a Member of the Academy of Arts in Germany. The German Design Council awarded Sapper a lifetime achievement award for his design work in 2009 and he was bestowed an Honorary Doctor degree from the University of North Carolina in 2010. In 2012 Sapper received the Merit Cross of the Order of Merit from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.