Thomas Feichtner was born in Brazil in 1970. After attending school in Düsseldorf, Germany, he earned a degree at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria, where he also became an instructor a few years later. After completing studies in industrial design, he founded his own design office. Feichtner initially designed industrial goods and numerous products for the Austrian sports industry, and was honoured with international design awards like the IF Design Award, the Swiss Design Prize, the Cannes Lion (nomination), the German Design Prize, the red dot design award, the European Design Award and the Josef Binder Award. Besides his activity as a product designer for Head, Tyrolia, Fischer and Blizzard, Feichtner also worked in the area of visual communications for the likes of Swarovski Optik, Adidas Eyewear or the British-Israeli designer Ron Arad.
His later work focused on artistic aspects and took a more experimental approach. In search of an independent mode of operation that went beyond globalization and mass production, he designed products for such traditional crafters as J&L Lobmeyr, Neue Wiener Werkstätten, Wiener Silber Manufactur, Augarten Porzellanmanufaktur and Stamm, and realised freelance projects in cooperation with Vitra and FSB. International exhibitions at the Triennale di Milano, the National Gallery in Prague, the Biennial of Industrial Design in Ljubljana, the Design Center Stuttgart, the Gansevoort Gallery in New York, Design Week in Tokyo as well as the Museum for Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna followed. His works have been acquired by various design collections. Feichtner is a professor for product design at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Germany. He lives and works in Vienna with his wife Simone Feichtner.
