Germans Ermičs

Latvian designer Germans Ermičs was born in Riga in 1985. In 2006, he interned at the Copenhagen studio of graphic designer Rasmus Koch, where he developed his graphic design skills. The following year, Ermičs co-founded Veto, a Latvian culture magazine. As of this writing, he continues to serve as the magazine’s art director.

Ermičs attended the Design Academy Eindhoven, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 2011 from the school’s Man and Living design department. In 2010, while still a student, he interned at the Paris studio of Austrian-born designer Robert Stadler. Upon graduating from school, he spent two years working on a variety of interiors and graphic design projects for international companies. In the fall of 2014, he established Studio Germans Ermičs, in Amsterdam.

Ermičs is fascinated by the ways in which people interact with their environments and how design can affect these interactions. He frequently draws inspiration from his graphic design background to add a fresh approach to his object and furniture designs, often playing with perceptions of space. Since graduating, the designer has concentrated primarily on experiments with glass and its chromatic qualities. According to Ermičs: “[While] glass is widely used in architecture, interior, and furniture design, [it] is often seen as cold, flat, and comfortless. I wanted to challenge this perception. My goal was to achieve softness and depth and to add subtle detailing to the material.”

Notable projects to date include Isometric Mirrors (2011), Ermičs’ graduation project, for which he framed oval mirrors with curved slivers of wood to mimic holes in the wall; Ombré Glass (2015) and Ombré Mirrors (2016), collections inspired by the colors of ever-changing light in the sky; and Shaping Color (2015-2016), a series of furniture objects that explores the relationship between color and shape and the ways that these two elements define an object. This last project debuted at the 2015 Body Language exhibition organized by Dutch Intervals for Milan Design Week; a continuation of the series was exhibited at the 2016 Salone Del Mobile. Describing this series, the designer notes: “Instead of finishing a product by painting it, I started from color. By initiating a dialogue between shape and color, I aim to unhinge the traditional roles in what defines a product.”

Ermičs lives and works in Amsterdam.