Ferruccio Laviani, the steward who has directed Kartell since 1991

Design has its authors and its stewards — the rarer breed who guard a brand's eye for decades. Ferruccio Laviani, born in Cremona in 1960, schooled at the Milan Polytechnic by Achille Castiglioni and Marco Zanuso, has been art director of Kartell since 1991 — the same year he opened his own studio. The client list runs from Cassina and Flos to Habitat and Samsung, but the Kartell tenure is the credential: thirty-plus years of keeping one of design's most recognisable identities coherent.

For i4Mariani he drew the executive desks Euclideo — faceted volumes interlocking around the work surface — and Cartesiano, crossing planes with resolute lines. La Mercanti specifies both within its i4Mariani range: stewardship you can actually sit behind.